Ukraine-Russia war live: Trump slammed for ‘parroting murderous’ Putin and calling Zelensky ‘dictator’
Donald Trump has been unanimously slammed by Ukraine’s allies in Europe and abroad for repeating Moscow’s claims about Volodymyr Zelensky as the US president tries to force a peace deal on Kyiv.
Mr Trump yesterday claimed the Ukrainian president was “a dictator without elections” and forced him to move fast “or he is not going to have a country left”.
“When the PM visits the White House next week, he must challenge Trump on his Ukraine lies in the strongest possible terms. It’s alarming to see the leader of the free world parroting Putin’s propaganda. Trump spoke in Mar-a-Lago but his words could have been written in Moscow,” said Ed Davey, the liberal democrat leader.
Australian allies have called for the war to negotiated on Ukraine’s terms as its defence minister Richard Marles said that “because the aggressor here is Russia, and what we see at stake is the integrity of the rules‑based order, the global rules-based order”.
“Vladimir Putin is a murderous dictator, and we shouldn’t be giving him an inch,” said Peter Dutton, the leader of the Liberal opposition party.
In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer has reiterated his support for the “democratically-elected” Mr Zelensky and said that it was perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during wartime as the UK did during the second World War.
