Zelensky Pushes Back on Trump's 'Started It' Line

Says the US president lives in a 'disinformation bubble'
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 19, 2025 7:42 AM CST
Zelensky Responds: Trump Lives in 'Disinformation Bubble'
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky gives a press conference in Kyiv, Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025.   (Tetiana Dzhafarova/Pool Photo via AP)

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky did not take kindly to President Trump's Tuesday suggestion that Ukraine "started it"—meaning the war with Russia three years ago—and could have avoided the conflict had it just made a deal. "President Trump ... unfortunately lives in this disinformation space," he said in response, per Reuters. "Around Trump there is a disinformation bubble." As for Trump's claims that Zelensky's approval rating stands at just 4%, the Ukrainian president suggested Trump was parroting Russian disinformation.

"As we are talking about 4%, we have seen this disinformation, we understand it's coming from Russia," Zelensky said in a Wednesday news conference. NBC News reports an opinion poll out Wednesday from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 57% of Ukrainians trust Zelensky. The New York Times reports that Zelensky added he "would like to have more truth with the Trump team." The paper points out the Ukrainian leader was speaking from his presidential office in Kyiv, "a building still fortified with sandbags to avoid blasts from Russian missiles"; it calls his comments "some of the most pointed yet about Mr. Trump and his views on the war."

France offered its own take on Trump's comments, and it was a perplexed one. "We don't understand the logic very well," a government rep told reporters, per the Guardian. She at one point referenced "the diverse, varied and often incomprehensible comments by President Trump" and said his European allies had not been looped in prior to his making such remarks. (More Volodymyr Zelensky stories.)

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