(AFP) – Ukraine should hold elections, Donald Trump said in an interview published Tuesday, calling into question whether the country is truly democratic, as he reiterated his sharp criticism of the Ukrainian leader. Speaking to Politico, the US president accused Kyiv of “using war” to avoid elections which have been postponed under the imposition of martial law since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“I think it’s an important time to hold an election. They’re using war not to hold an election, but I would think the Ukrainian people would… should have that choice,” Trump said. “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.” Without martial law, a Ukrainian presidential election would have been due in March 2024.
Trump reiterated the criticisms he made on Sunday about Volodymyr Zelensky, claiming that the Ukrainian president had not read the US plan to end the war. Days of negotiations between US and Ukrainian officials, including Zelensky, ended Saturday without an apparent breakthrough, though Zelensky committed to conducting further talks toward “real peace.”
“Maybe he’s read it over the night. It would be nice if he would read it. You know, a lot of people are dying,” Trump said. The US president asserted that Moscow has the “upper hand” in the conflict by virtue of being “much bigger.” Pressed on whether he thought Ukraine had lost the war, Trump replied: “Well, they’ve lost territory long before I got here,” and adding their losses have continued in the past 10 months.
His comments came as Ukraine’s European allies expressed solidarity with Kyiv in London on Monday, with Zelensky maintaining Ukraine has “no right” to cede the territories claimed by Moscow to Russia. According to Trump, “part of the problem” is that Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “really hate each other” and that it is therefore “it’s very hard for them to try and make a deal.”
Trump also criticized the role of Europe in trying to bring an end to the war. “Europe is not doing a good job in many ways,” he said. “They talk but they don’t produce. And the war just keeps going on and on. I mean, four years now it’s been going on, long before I got here,” Trump said.
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