Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held an urgent videoconference with a bipartisan group of U.S. senators and representatives for aid in its war against Russia.
The Ukrainian leader told lawmakers that Ukraine missed U.S. early warnings for three Russian ballistic missile attacks in the past week: that US officials failed last week to share information about impending missile attacks and limited the military’s access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service.
He has also said that the US has failed to send weapons that are crucial to Ukraine’s fight against Russia and suggested that the Trump administration secretly imposed these restrictions in an attempt to force Zelensky to accept a deal to end the war in a manner that would be favorable to Russia.
Trump and other White House officials have repeatedly fought back against the claims, denying that anyone in the administration throttled the satellite service and saying that the lack of warnings about possible strikes last week was the result of a software problem.
But as Zelensky doubled down on his claims on Monday, Trump fought back.
‘Zelensky doesn’t know what he is talking about,’ the president told reporters outside the White House.
‘All I want for Russia and Ukraine is for them to stop the stupid war. Anything I can do to end the war whether somebody’s there or not, whatever I can do to end the war, I will have done the world a big, big favor.
‘If he would have listened to me, he would have made a much better deal a long time ago and have a million people living from his side,’ Trump then claimed of Zelensky, adding: ‘I think there’s time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine.’
The president’s remarks came as Zelensky told a virtual meeting of US senators that the current situation in Ukraine is ‘the most difficult’ since ‘the very beginning of this war,’ according to CNN.
He then said it appears as if ‘some political decision has been made to slow down support for us’ as he laid out the various problems his country has been facing.
