By Olena Harmash and Tom Balmforth
KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was counting on Ukrainian and European unity and U.S. pragmatism as Kyiv faces a mounting crisis in relations with its hitherto key U.S. ally under the leadership of President Donald Trump.
In an extraordinary rift, Trump said on Wednesday that Zelenskiy was a “dictator without elections” who should act quickly or lose his country, unthinkable rhetoric from a U.S. leader for most of Russia’s three-year-old all-out war.
Trump is pushing for a quick deal to end the war in Ukraine and has alarmed Washington’s European allies by leaving them and Ukraine out of initial talks with Russia and blaming Ukraine for Russia’s 2022 invasion.
European leaders have responded by pledging to step up spending on defence and some are considering a U.S.-backed European peacekeeping force for Ukraine, a plan the Kremlin says is a major cause for concern but which Zelenskiy has welcomed.
“We are standing strong on our own two feet. I am counting on Ukrainian unity, our courage … on the unity of Europe and the pragmatism of America,” Zelenskiy told Ukrainians in his video address late on Wednesday.
“Because America needs success just as much as we do,” he added.
The row with the U.S. coincides with a visit to Ukraine by Keith Kellogg, the U.S. envoy for Russia and Ukraine.
Zelenskiy told Ukrainians that he would be meeting Kellogg on Thursday. He said it was crucial that the meeting as well as cooperation with Washington in general was “constructive”.
Trump is seeking to reestablish ties with Russia and also invest in Ukraine’s resources of minerals critical to the energy transition, although Ukraine rejected an initial U.S. plan as it did not entail security guarantees.
The Trump administration may seek to strike a simplified minerals deal and later negotiate detailed terms, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
Kellogg said as he arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday that he was there to listen. Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Trump was repeating Russian disinformation but later struck a conciliatory tone.
“Together with America and Europe, peace can be more secure and this is our goal. Success brings us together. Our unity is the strongest safeguard of our future. A future without (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, but with peace.”
European leaders have been struggling to respond to the sudden apparent about-turn in U.S. policy towards Russia and Ukraine. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was among European leaders who held talks with Canada on Wednesday.
“Recent developments and this different view of things from the United States now oblige us not only to face the truth, but to move at a very high speed and implement decisions that we have been discussing for long,” he said late on Wednesday.
Russian forces have laid Ukrainian cities, towns and villages to waste and are edging forward along parts of the 1,000 km (600-mile) front line across eastern and southern Ukraine. Moscow controls a fifth of Ukraine and claims ownership of more.
Ukrainian officials say a ceasefire would just give Russia time to prepare for further aggression, but the head of Ukrainian military intelligence agency said on Thursday there could be a ceasefire this year, while casting doubt on its durability.
‘IMPOSSIBLE AND IMMORAL’
At the centre of Trump’s charge that Zelenskiy is a “dictator” is that Ukraine has not held elections because of martial law, which it declared when Russia unleashed its invasion on February 24, 2022.
Martial law, which provides authorities with emergency powers for the war effort, specifically prohibits holding ruary elections. Zelenskiy’s mandate would normally have ended last May, but he remains in power as no election has been held.
Trump’s comments have spurred some, though not all Ukraine’s opposition figures to speak out and rally around Zelenskiy despite seeing him as a political opponent.
Ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Zelenskiy was Ukraine’s legitimate leader until someone else was elected, and that it was “impossible and immoral” to hold elections during the war, as the military would not be able to take part.
“Only Ukrainians have the right to decide when and under what conditions they should change their government. Today, there are no such conditions!” she wrote on Facebook.
Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the ex-army chief who is Ukraine’s ambassador to London and whose popularity make him look like a one-day presidential candidate, said ending the war with Russia, not elections, were the priority.
At an event hosted by Ukrainian media outlet NV, he said: “for now, we have one task: to stand up and preserve our state.”
“Only after that we will think about something else.”
The most prominent opposition figure who is yet to robustly push back on Trump’s latest election call is Petro Poroshenko, the former president who sees Zelenskiy as a political rival and with whom he has acrimonious relations.
Poroshenko has in the past staunchly opposed calls for wartime elections in the name of national unity, but he has remained silent this time after the government imposed sanctions on him last week, something he said was a blow to unity.
Iryna Herashchenko, a lawmaker for Poroshenko’s party, has been calling for a government of national unity.
She said: “the biggest responsibility today lies with the Ukrainian authorities. Zelenskiy must immediately stop putting pressure on the opposition and political repression against those he does not like.”
Serhii Prytula, who runs a major charity supporting the Ukrainian army and is seen as a possible presidential hopeful one day, advised Ukrainians on X not to read Trump’s comments before bed.
“Remember that here in Ukraine, only we – the people of Ukraine – determine who is a dictator and who is not.”
(Additional reporting by Yuliia Dysa in Gdansk; writing by Tom Balmforth and Philippa Fletcher; editing by Angus MacSwan)
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