UK takes a different view to Trump on Zelensky, says Cabinet minister
Donald Trump repeated his attacks on the Ukrainian leader overnight after a war of words erupted between the two leaders.
The UK takes “a different view” to Donald Trump and does not consider Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator, a Cabinet minister has said after Sir Keir Starmer backed the Ukranian leader in a phone call.
The US president repeated his attacks on the Ukrainian leader overnight after a war of words erupted between the two leaders, which saw Mr Trump criticise Mr Zelensky for postponing elections and claiming Ukraine started the war with Russia.
The Prime Minister told Mr Zelensky of his support in a phone call on Wednesday evening, and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said on the BBC that the UK considers the Ukrainian president “to be a legitimate leader”.
Speaking at an investment meeting in Miami on Wednesday, Mr Trump accused Mr Zelensky of talking “the United States of America into spending 350 billion dollars (£278 billion) to go into a war that basically couldn’t be won, that never had to start and never would have started if I was president”.
Mr Trump added: “He refuses to have elections. The only thing he was really good at was playing Joe Biden like a fiddle.
“A dictator without elections, Zelensky better move fast. He’s not going to have a country left.”
He had made similar remarks earlier in the day on his own social media platform, TruthSocial.
Mr Zelensky – who had earlier accused Mr Trump of living in a “disinformation space” – was elected as president of Ukraine in May 2019.
Elections were previously scheduled to go ahead in 2024, but they were not held as a result of martial law being in place.
Asked whether Sir Keir should have publicly contradicted Mr Trump over his comments calling the Ukrainian leader a “dictator”, Ms Nandy told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The Prime Minister has made his own view clear.
“He spoke to President Zelensky in the last few days and made clear that he understands, first of all that he is an elected leader, and we consider him in the United Kingdom to be a legitimate leader.”
Asked whether she was saying Mr Trump is wrong, Ms Nandy added: “We take a different view. We do not consider President Zelensky to be a dictator.”
She said that Mr Zelensky was “elected by the people” and “Russian aggression” is the reason elections have not been held.
“We stand with Ukraine, and our belief in that our support for Ukraine is unshakeable,” she added.
In a phone call to the Ukrainian leader on Wednesday evening, the Prime Minister had said it was “perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time as the UK did during World War Two”, according to a Downing Street spokesperson.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said that Mr Zelensky is “not a dictator” in a post on X on Wednesday evening. Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel repeated Ms Badenoch’s assertion, but declined to comment on the “motivation” behind Mr Trump’s words.
Asked why the US president made his comments, Dame Priti told Sky News: “We don’t know. And you know, I don’t think I could comment on his motivation.
“What I can say, though, is he has made some very significant points consistently – in all credit to President Trump – about Europe and Europe stepping up when it comes to defence spending.”
It comes ahead of the Prime Minister’s trip to Washington DC next week for talks with Mr Trump, including on Ukraine and European security.
The meeting will be Sir Keir’s first with Mr Trump since his inauguration as US president in January, and will see Britain attempt to balance its support for Ukraine with the need to keep the White House onside.
Ms Nandy said that the Prime Minister will speak with his US counterpart about a “role for Europe” in the end to the war in Ukraine.
She told BBC Breakfast that last time Mr Trump was in office, she and the PM met with senior members of his administration and “found them to be incredibly pragmatic” in wanting to solve problems, as Mr Trump has made clear he wants to do with Ukraine.
She said: “We’ve been clear in turn that there can be no solution without Ukraine at the table. We’ve been clear that there must be a role for Europe.
“And I think that is a view that is shared by the Trump administration, and that’s the conversation that the Prime Minister will be having next week when he travels to the United States.”
Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov will be at the same diplomatic meeting as David Lammy on Thursday, with the pair both having travelled to South Africa for the G20 foreign ministers summit.
During the two-day meeting, Mr Lammy is expected to directly criticise the Kremlin and emphasise the UK’s unwavering support for Ukraine, as well as addressing other areas.
Meanwhile, Defence Secretary John Healey spent Thursday morning in bilateral talks with Norwegian defence minister Tore Sandvik deep within a mountainside fortress.
On the second day of his trip to the country, Mr Healey and his counterpart discussed shared security priorities, including Ukraine and defending the high north from Russia.
The Defence Secretary and his counterpart held their discussion at Norwegian Joint Headquarters, the command centre for Norway’s military, which is tunnelled into the side of a mountain near the town of Bodo in the north of the Scandinavian country.
