(AFP) – US President Donald Trump accused Ukraine Friday of talking “tough” but of having few cards to play in negotiations to end Russia’s invasion, as he continued his feud with President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump also said it was not “very important” for Zelensky to be involved in the talks, which Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to start after an ice-breaking phone call last week.
“I’ve had very good talks with Putin, and I’ve had not such good talks with Ukraine. They don’t have any cards, but they play it tough,” Trump told a gathering of US governors at the White House. “But we’re not going to let this continue,” Trump added. “We have people who’ve got to get to the table — we’ve got to get that ended.” Trump had already said earlier this week that Russia has “the cards” because it has seized large chunks of Ukraine’s territory — further spooking Kyiv and European allies who fear he will give Putin concessions for a deal.
The US president is also pushing Zelensky to hand Washington preferential access to Ukraine’s mineral deposits, insisting on a return for billions of dollars in US aid to Kyiv. Zelensky refused and complained that Kyiv was being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia between Russian and US officials. Trump then erupted, calling Zelensky a “dictator without elections” and blaming Ukraine for the war.
The US president continued his attacks on Friday, saying in a radio interview with Fox News ahead of his White House remarks that Zelensky’s presence in the talks was not essential. “I don’t think he’s very important to be in meetings,” Trump said. “He’s been there for three years. He makes it very hard to make deals.”
Trump again declined to blame Russia for the February 2022 invasion, saying that “Russia attacked but they shouldn’t have let him attack.” He said of Zelensky that “I’ve been watching this man for years now, as his cities get demolished… and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards, he has no cards, and you get sick of it.” Trump said Putin faced no pressure to make a deal. “He doesn’t have to make a deal, because if he wanted, he’d get the whole country,” Trump said.
Trump separately accused French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who are due at the White House next week — of doing nothing to end the war. “The war’s going on, they had no meetings with Russia, no nothing — they haven’t done anything,” Trump said. “Macron’s a friend of mine, I’ve met with the prime minister and, you know, he’s a very nice guy. But nobody’s done anything.”
Washington meanwhile upped the pressure on Ukraine to sign a deal giving it access to Kyiv’s rich reserves of raw earth metals and other minerals. The White House insisted Friday that Ukraine will sign the deal “in the very short term,” despite Zelensky previously rejecting it over its lack of security guarantees. “Here’s the bottom line, President Zelensky is going to sign that deal, and you will see that in the very short term,” Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Waltz told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) near Washington. Waltz decried critics “clutching their pearls” over the US shift on Ukraine, which has seen Trump and his top officials echo Kremlin narratives against Kyiv and Zelensky.
© 2024 AFP
