US President Donald Trump has effectively blamed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky for Russia\u2019s invasion, as French President Emmanuel Macron prepares for another round of talks with EU and non-European partners on Wednesday. Zelensky previously criticised the US-Russia talks for excluding Kyiv, saying efforts to end the war must be \u201cfair\u201d and involve European countries. The Ukrainian leader\u2019s comments appeared to incense Trump, who launched a series of verbal attacks on Zelensky. \u201cI\u2019m very disappointed, I hear that they\u2019re upset about not having a seat,\u201d Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Tuesday. \u201cToday I heard, \u2018oh, well, we weren\u2019t invited\u2019. Well, you\u2019ve been there for three years \u2026 You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.\u201d Trump also suggested he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month in Saudi Arabia as he overhauls Washington\u2019s stance towards Moscow \u2014 a shift that has alarmed European leaders. Earlier on Tuesday, Russia and the United States had agreed to establish teams to negotiate a path to ending the war in Ukraine after talks that drew a strong rebuke from Kyiv, with Zelensky postponing his own trip to Saudi Arabia. France\u2019s Macron announced another meeting in Paris on Ukraine after the US-Russia talks, adding that Trump \u201ccan restart a useful dialogue\u201d with Putin. Trump also increased pressure on Zelensky to hold elections \u2014 echoing one of Moscow\u2019s key demands. \u2018No one but Putin\u2019 wanted Ukraine war, says German foreign minister Germany said on Wednesday that it was Putin who launched the Ukraine war, contradicting Trump\u2019s claim that Kyiv had \u201cstarted\u201d the fighting. \u201cNo one but Putin started or wanted this war in the heart of Europe,\u201d said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in a statement, adding that \u201cwe are working with all our might to further strengthen Ukraine\u201d. She said \u201cwe are at an existential waypoint for security and peace in Europe\u201d and that the goal is \u201cachieving lasting peace for Ukraine \u2013 safe and protected from future Russian aggression\u201d. Baerbock said that any \u201cfalse peace \u2026 would only give Russia a respite for new military campaigns\u201d. Regarding the fast-moving events since Trump spoke directly with Putin about ending the conflict, she said that \u201cwe must not allow ourselves to be confused\u201d and \u201ckeep a cool head\u201d. Downplaying Europe\u2019s role on Ukraine \u201conly plays into the hands\u201d of Russia, she said. \u201cI therefore advocate acting confidently towards the US administration. \u201c Trump wants Ukraine election Asked whether the United States would support demands that Russia wanted to force Zelensky to hold new elections as part of any deal, Trump began by criticising what he said were the Ukrainian\u2019s approval ratings. \u201cThey want a seat at the table, but you could say \u2026 wouldn\u2019t the people of Ukraine have a say? It\u2019s been a long time since we\u2019ve had an election,\u201d said Trump. \u201cThat\u2019s not a Russian thing, that\u2019s something coming from me, from other countries.\u201d Zelensky was elected in 2019 for a five-year term, but has remained in office as Ukraine is still under martial law. Trump\u2019s latest remarks are unlikely to allay fears among some European leaders, already worried that Washington will make serious concessions to Moscow and re-write the continent\u2019s security arrangement in a Cold War-style deal. Washington noted European nations would have to have a seat at the negotiating table \u201cat some point\u201d. The US-Russia talks \u2014 the first high-level official talks between the two countries since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine \u2014 drew a fiery response from Kyiv. \u201cThis will only be feeding Putin\u2019s appetite,\u201d a Ukrainian senior official requesting anonymity told AFP, referring to the launch of talks without Ukraine. Trump for his part said he was \u201cmuch more confident\u201d of a deal after the Riyadh talks, telling reporters on Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago estate: \u201cI think I have the power to end this war.\u201d Zelensky says Trump living in Russian \u2018disinformation space\u2019 Responding to scathing comments by Trump that Zelensky\u2019s popularity rating is four per cent, Zelensky said the US president was living in a Russian \u201cdisinformation space\u201d. \u201cUnfortunately, President Trump, who we have great respect for as leader of the American people \u2026 lives in this disinformation space,\u201d Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv, accusing Moscow of misleading Trump. Calling for presidential elections in Ukraine, which are banned under martial law, Trump said on Tuesday of Zelensky: \u201cHe\u2019s down at 4pc approval rating\u201d. Zelensky said the figure \u201ccomes from Russia\u201d. A telephone poll of 1,000 people by the respected Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, published on Wednesday, found that 57pc of respondents trusted Zelensky, while 37pc said they did not and the rest were undecided. Russia praises Trump for saying Nato major cause of war in Ukraine In a related development, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lauded Trump on Wednesday for saying that previous US support of Ukraine\u2019s bid to join the Nato military alliance was a major cause of the war in Ukraine. Trump has said that he saw no way that Russia could have allowed Ukraine to join Nato, and blamed former Democratic President Joe Biden for allegedly changing the US position on Nato membership for Ukraine. \u201cHe is the first, and so far, in my opinion, the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly said that one of the root causes of the Ukrainian situation was the impudent line of the previous administration to draw Ukraine into Nato,\u201d Lavrov told lawmakers. \u201cNo Western leaders had ever said that, but he had said it several times. This is already a signal that he understands our position when President [Vladimir] Putin,\u201d Lavrov said. Amid talks with the US in Riyadh on Tuesday, Russia demanded Nato scrap its 2008 promise to one day give Ukraine membership of the US-led alliance and dismissed the idea that Nato member forces could be keepers of the peace under some sort of ceasefire deal. \u2018Heard each other\u2019 US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian FM Lavrov agreed to \u201cappoint respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible\u201d, the State Department said. Washington added that the sides had also agreed to \u201cestablish a consultation mechanism\u201d to address \u201cirritants\u201d to the US-Russia relationship, noting the sides would lay the groundwork for future cooperation. Riyadh marks a diplomatic coup for Moscow, which had been isolated for three years under the previous US administration of Joe Biden. Moscow\u2019s economic negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev, said Western attempts to isolate Russia had \u201cobviously failed\u201d. \u201cWe did not just listen but heard each other, and I have reason to believe the American side has better understood our position,\u201d Lavrov told reporters. The veteran diplomat noted that Russia opposed any deployment of Nato-nation troops to Ukraine as part of an eventual ceasefire. European allies publicly diverged this week over whether they would be open to sending truce peacekeepers to Ukraine. Macron, in an interview with French regional newspapers, appeared open to the idea of sending troops to Ukraine but only in the most limited fashion and away from conflict zones. He said new talks would take place \u201cwith several European and non-European states\u201d, after an emergency meeting on Monday in Paris which brought together a small number of key European countries. Moscow has long called for the withdrawal of Nato forces from eastern Europe, viewing the alliance as an existential threat on its flank. The Kremlin on Tuesday said Ukraine had the right to join the European Union, but not the Nato military alliance. It also said Putin was \u201cready\u201d to negotiate with Zelensky \u201cif necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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