Donald Trump "can't believe" that he called Zelensky a dictator

^{Photo: Yuri Gripas/Pool via CNP/AdMedia/picture alliance}
Donald Trump on Thursday, February 27, backtracked on his previous statement that Volodymyr Zelensky is a “dictator.” “Did I say that? I don’t believe it. Next question,” the US president replied to a journalist’s question during a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House.

On February 19, Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform that the Ukrainian president is a “dictator without elections” for “refusing to hold elections” in his country. “Zelensky better hurry up, otherwise his country will be gone,” the American leader added. That day, Donald Trump repeated this statement during a speech at a rally in Miami.

On February 24, when asked whether it was possible to call US President Vladimir Putin a dictator, he said: “I would not use such words without thinking,” and did not call the Russian leader that way.

Trump's statements were criticized

The statements of the head of the White House were criticized both in Ukraine and abroad. In particular, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the words of the US president “wrong and dangerous.” “The fact is that Volodymyr Zelensky is the legally elected head of the Ukrainian state. The impossibility of holding fair elections in wartime is consistent with the provisions of the Ukrainian Constitution and electoral law. And no one has the right to claim otherwise,” the German leader emphasized.

The European Commission commented on Trump's verbal attack on Zelensky: “We have a clear position on this issue: President Zelensky was legally elected in free, fair and democratic elections. Ukraine is a democratic state, and Putin's Russia is not.” The United Nations also confirmed that Volodymyr Zelensky is in office "after fair elections." Read 'Zamin' on Telegram!