US President Donald Trump said that Ukraine needs elections if it wants to sit at the negotiating table with Russia to resolve their conflict.
Also, Trump argued that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not popular.
“We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have 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 the country’s been blown to smithereens,” the US president told reporters after signing his new executive orders at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
“You know, they [i.e. Ukraine] want a seat at the [negotiating] table. You could say the people have to, wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have to say, ‘Like, it’s been a long time since we’ve had an election,’” Trump said.
According to the US president, he is not saying this because the Russian authorities have expressed themselves in that way.
That’s what he and many other countries are saying, Trump added.