WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday for suggesting that the end of Russia’s war against Ukraine likely “is still very, very far away.”
The comments come as prominent Trump allies escalate pressure on Zelensky to dramatically change his approach to the US president, who has made quickly ending the war a top priority, or step aside.
The long complicated relationship between the leaders has reached a nadir following a disastrous White House meeting in which Trump and Vice President JD Vance excoriated Zelensky for not being sufficiently thankful for US support for Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the February 2022 invasion.
“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelensky, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform about the comments Zelensky made late Sunday while speaking to reporters in London.
Trump at an event at the White House later on Monday referred to Zelensky’s reported comments, and asserted the Ukrainian leader “better not be right about that.”
“If somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long,” Trump added. “That person will not be listened to very long.”
Trump took issue with Zelensky suggesting it would take time to come to an agreement to end the war. The Ukrainian leader also tried to offer a positive take on the US-Ukraine relationship in the aftermath of last week’s White House meeting.
Asked by a reporter about the outlines of a new European initiative to end Russia’s war, Zelensky said: “We are talking about the first steps today, and, therefore, until they are on paper, I would not like to talk about them in great detail.”
“An agreement to end the war is still very, very far away, and no one has started all these steps yet,” he added.
But Trump was only further irritated by Zelensky’s suggesting it will take time for the conflict to come to a close.
“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelensky, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the US — Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia,” Trump added in his post. “What are they thinking?”
Zelensky took to social media soon after Trump’s latest criticism. He did not directly refer to Trump’s comments, but underscored that it “is very important that we try to make our diplomacy really substantive to end this war the soonest possible.”
“We need real peace and Ukrainians want it most because the war ruins our cities and towns,” Zelensky added. “We lose our people. We need to stop the war and to guarantee security.”
Trump’s national security adviser said Zelensky’s posture during Friday’s Oval Office talks “put up in the air” whether he’s someone the US administration will be able to deal with going forward.
“Is he ready, personally, politically, to move his country toward an end to the fighting?” Mike Waltz said on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” earlier Monday. “And can he and will he make the compromises necessary?”
Waltz added another layer of doubt about US support as other high-profile Trump allies have suggested that the relationship between Trump and Zelensky is becoming untenable.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday that Zelensky “needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude or someone else needs to lead the country” for Ukraine to continue pursuing a peace deal negotiated by the United States.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who has been a vociferous supporter of Ukraine, said soon after the Oval Office meeting that Zelensky “either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change.”
Angela Stent, a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council, said Putin is likely in no rush to end the war amid the fissures between Trump and Zelensky and Europe and the US about the way ahead.
“He is not interested in ending the war,” said Stent, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “He thinks Russia is winning. ... And he thinks that as time goes on, the West will be more fractured.”
Trump administration and Ukrainian officials had been expected to sign off on a deal during Zelensky’s visit last week that would have given the US access to Ukraine’s critical minerals in part to pay back more than $180 billion in aid the US has sent Kyiv since the start of the war. The White House has also billed such a pact as a way to tighten US-Ukrainian relations in the long term.
The signing was scrapped after the leaders’ Oval Office talks went off the rails and White House officials asked Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation to leave.
Trump on Monday, however, suggested he hasn’t given up on the economic pact, calling it “a great deal.” He added that he expected to speak to the deal during his Tuesday address before a joint session of Congress.
Trump slams Zelensky for saying the end of the Russia war ‘is still very, very far away’
https://arab.news/pems5
Trump slams Zelensky for saying the end of the Russia war ‘is still very, very far away’
- “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelensky, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform about the comments Zelensky made late Sunday
Villagers massacred in South Sudan food aid trap
- Civilians killed after being lured from homes with promise of aid, witnesses say
NAIROBI: More than a dozen civilians were killed after being lured from their homes by fighters allied to South Sudan’s government under the pretense of being registered for humanitarian food aid, according to two people who survived the attack.
The killings took place on Saturday morning in the village of Pankor, in Ayod county, in the conflict-hit Jonglei state, about 400km north of the capital, Juba.
Women and children were among the victims.
HIGHLIGHTS
• The two survivors said that 22 people were killed and several more were injured. • Photos showed bodies of women and young men, some with their hands bound behind their backs, who appear to have been shot at close range.
Several dozen fighters arrived in pickup trucks and announced over a loudspeaker that they had come to register residents for food assistance, said the two survivors.
“They gathered them in a luak,” said one witness, referring to a traditional mud hut used to house cattle.
“People were thinking they would get aid or some help.”
The fighters then bound the hands of several men and opened fire on the group.
The two survivors said that 22 people were killed and several more were injured.
The government-appointed county commissioner said 16 people were killed.
Photos showed bodies of women and young men, some with their hands bound behind their backs, who appear to have been shot at close range.
The images, which were shared with AP by an opposition representative, are too graphic to publish.
Makuach Muot, 34, traveled to Pankor on Sunday for the funerals of eight relatives.
Most of the village’s residents had fled fighting months earlier, he said, leaving behind mainly elderly people and young children.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Lul Ruai Koang could not be reached for comment.
James Chuol Jiek, the government-appointed county commissioner of Ayod, confirmed that more than a dozen people, mostly women and children, had been killed in the attack.
He said the gunmen belonged to the Agwelek militia, a force drawn from the Shilluk ethnic group that has not been fully integrated into the national army but that has been deeply involved in recent military operations.
Jiek said the fighters had left their barracks overnight without their commander’s knowledge.
He said they told him the killings were revenge for attacks by a Nuer militia on Shilluk villages in 2022, during which hundreds of civilians were killed or abducted.
The government county commissioner condemned the killings and said that several officers had been arrested and that the army had disarmed 150 fighters from the battalion involved.
He disputed that people had been lured out for an aid registration. “This is an opposition lie,” he said.
In January, Agwelek militia commander Lt. Gen. Johnson Olony was filmed ordering his forces to kill civilians during military operations in Jonglei state. “Spare no lives,” he said.
“When we arrive there, don’t spare an elderly, don’t spare a chicken, don’t spare a house or anything.”
His remarks drew widespread rebuke from the UN and others. Olony has since apologized.
Armed clashes, aerial bombardments, and years of extreme flooding have left more than half of Ayod county’s population facing severe food insecurity.
Ayod county lies in northern Jonglei state, an opposition stronghold and a flashpoint in renewed fighting that the UN estimates displaced 280,000people since December.
Aid groups have warned that access restrictions to opposition-held parts of the state were endangering civilian lives.
Residents of northern Jonglei are overwhelmingly from the Nuer ethnic group of suspended vice president and opposition leader Riek Machar.
Opposition officials have repeatedly called the government’s actions in Nuer areas of the country “genocidal.”
Reath Tang Muoch, a senior official in the SPLM-IO, called Olony’s remarks “an early indicator of genocidal intent.”
