US President Donald J. Trump Wednesday hit out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him a “comedian” and “dictator” who “shattered” the Eastern European nation. He also said Zelenskyy talked the US into spending billions of dollars to go to a war that “couldn’t be won, that never had to start”.

The American President in the last week has opened negotiations with Russia to negotiate an end to the war—a move which has stumped Kyiv.

“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

The American President added: “He [Zelenskyy] refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle’. A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP’, and the Trump Administration, can do.”

Trump spoke with Putin on 12 February for nearly an hour and a half, and the two leaders agreed to begin negotiations to end the nearly three-year long war. The call was followed up with a meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Saudi Arabian city of Riyadh Tuesday. There was no Ukrainian participation in the preliminary negotiations for a potential peace deal.

The two sides agreed to “appoint respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all sides,” according to a readout published by the US State Department.

In a further reversal of the US’ decades-long position on Russia, both Rubio and Lavrov further agreed to “lay the groundwork for future cooperation on matters of mutual geopolitical interest and historic economic and investment opportunities”.

Trump’s actions have shaken the European Union (EU) member-states. President Emmanuel Macron of France hosted an informal dinner with different leaders Monday evening in Brussels to build consensus for a response to the US President’s position on the war in Ukraine.

The back and forth between the Ukrainian and American Presidents follows Trump’s assertion Tuesday that Ukraine started the war with Russia, and it should have rather “made a deal” with Moscow.

The current war in Ukraine—the largest in Europe since the end of World War II—began after Russian President Vladimir V. Putin “announced a special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022.

Trump has criticised the previous American administration under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for its support of Ukraine with financial aid and military equipment, while hitting out his European allies over the war.

“Biden never tried [negotiating peace with Russia], Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…” said Trump on Truth Social.

The Trump administration has also been pushing Kyiv to accept an agreement to potentially hand-over roughly $500 billion worth of its critical mineral resources to the US in return for unclear security guarantees—a deal which was not agreed to by Zelenskyy.

Scott Bessent, the US Secretary of the Treasury, was in Ukraine last week to negotiate a deal over Kyiv’s critical mineral reserves with Zelenskyy. Bessent, was the first high-level American official to visit Kyiv, since Trump assumed office last month.