The US president, Donald Trump, has made a number of at best controversial – and at worst outright false and misleading – statements about Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while praising the progress made in US-Russia talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Here, we look at his claims.
On Ukraine’s responsibility for starting war
“But today I heard: ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
The facts: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked and widely condemned by the international community as an act of aggression.
In the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Zelenskyy repeatedly offered to meet his Russian counterpart. Five days before Russian troops rolled into Ukraine, Zelenskyy said: “We are ready to sit down and speak. Pick the platform that you like.”
To deter Moscow from launching the invasion, the US declassified and released intelligence reports exposing Russia’s plans to attack, warning that harsh economic sanctions would follow if the Kremlin proceeded.
In the days and weeks after the invasion, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators held several rounds of talks in Belarus and Turkey. However, Russia’s demands were maximalist, including the partial demilitarisation of Ukraine, which would have in effect crippled the country’s ability to defend itself in the future.
The former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace described Trump’s claims as being “straight out of the Kremlin talking points”.
Zelenskyy is deeply unpopular and blocking elections
“We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine. Well, we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating and where a country has been blown to smithereens. You got most of the cities are laying on their sides.”
The facts: While Zelenskyy’s popularity has declined since the start of the full-scale invasion, a February poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 57% of Ukrainians trusted the president, up from 52% in December.
Polls indicate that most Ukrainians, as well as politicians critical of Zelenskyy, believe that now is not the right time for elections.
“Our position is that during a war, there is no room for politics – and especially not for elections,” said Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, an MP from the Fatherland party of the former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and a former head of the SBU security agency.
He said: “It would be the end for Ukraine. To start political or election activity would mean Putin’s victory the next day.”
US gives more aid to Ukraine than Europe
“They have to find out where is the money going to. I believe President Zelenskyy said last week that he doesn’t know where half of the money is that we gave him. Well, we gave them, I believe, $350bn [£278bn], but let’s say it’s something less than that. But it’s a lot, and we have to equalise with Europe because Europe has given a very much smaller percentage than that.
“I think Europe has given $100bn and we’ve given, let’s say, $300-plus, and it’s more important for them than it is for us. We have an ocean in between and they don’t. But where is all the money that’s been given? Where is it going? And I’ve never seen an accounting of it. We give hundreds of billions of dollars.”
The facts: There are many numbers swirling around, with different methodologies used to calculate individual contributions.
The Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine Support Tracker shows that Europe – counted as the sum of the EU and individual member states – has allocated €132.3bn (£109.6bn/$137.9bn) in help for Ukraine, ahead of €114.2bn from the US. It has also committed a further €115bn, according to the tracker.
Apart from EU institutions, Germany and the UK are the largest national contributors, respectively third and fourth. The US is first.
The largest contributions as a percentage of GDP were made by Estonia and Denmark (2.5%), Lithuania (2.1%), Latvia (1.8%), Finland (1.3%), Sweden and Poland (1.2%).
On Tuesday, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, made that point to the US-Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, telling him about “the EU’s critical role in ensuring Ukraine’s financial stability and defence”, pointedly noting, “more than any other ally”.
Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, said last week that in 2024: “Nato allies provided over €50bn in security assistance to Ukraine – nearly 60% of this coming from Europe and Canada.”
Wallace also called Trump out in a post on X for his comments, saying on Wednesday they were “genuine fake news”, as “in fact, Europe has given more” than the US.
Wallace said: “A large proportion of aid has actually been spent by donor nations on their own replacements of gifted kit. So some large sums are ‘spin’. The US, for example, has sent only $100bn of the $175bn as direct aid to Ukraine and spent at least $25bn on its own replenishment.”
Russia is not deploying its full military potential in Ukraine
“Russia does not intend to destroy Kyiv, if they had wanted to, they would have done it. Russia is capable of wiping out Ukrainian cities 100%, including Kyiv, but right now, they are only attacking at 20%.”
The facts: Russia has unleashed the full force of its military – including missiles and long-range artillery – on Ukrainian cities, causing widespread destruction, particularly in the east.
As its stockpiles dwindle, Moscow has turned to North Korean missiles, which continue to strike Ukrainian cities. There is no indication that Russia has been stockpiling weapons or holding back its military capabilities in the fight.
Russia wants to stop the war
“Well, much more confident [about the talks]. They were very good. Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the savage barbarianism.”
The facts: Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly stated they will not halt fighting in Ukraine until all of Moscow’s objectives are met – whether through diplomacy or military force.
Putin has previously demanded the “demilitarisation of Ukraine” and has said he wants full control of four eastern and southern Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Luhansk – which Russia currently occupies in part.
Intelligence from the US and close allies, cited in US media on Tuesday, suggested that Putin still wants to control all of Ukraine, according to four western intelligence officials and two US congressional officials.
• This article was amended on 20 February 2025. An earlier version incorrectly suggested that Russia fully occupied the regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Luhansk.
