Far-left President of Colombia Gustavo Petro criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Tuesday evening for his “stupidity” in “giving Ukraine to the Americans,” referring to a soon-to-be signed mineral agreement with the administration of President Donald Trump.
“Zelensky’s stupidity, and I say it plainly, for letting himself be manipulated by Western Europeans, who do not know where they are going, whether towards Hitler, or towards nothing; they fight with their Slavic brothers and end up giving Ukraine to the Americans,” Petro said on his official Twitter account.
Petro issued the rant against Zelensky in response to a purportedly completed agreement in which Ukraine would sell rare earth minerals to the United States that would allow America to get a return on the tens of billions of dollars given to support Ukraine against Russia’s ongoing invasion of its territory. Reports published on Wednesday morning indicate that Zelensky is slated to fly to Washington, DC, on Friday to sign the agreement with President Trump.
Ukraine is home to a wide array of minerals of high importance in modern industry such as lithium, an indispensable material used in the manufacturing of batteries for electric batteries, smartphones, computers, and other electronic devices, as well as uranium, a critical material for nuclear energy.
Petro, a former member of the Marxist M19 terrorist guerrilla and the first leftist president in the country’s history, repeatedly affirmed over the past years that he holds a “neutral” stance in the Ukraine-Russian conflict, making calls for peace but without outright denouncing either side.
Colombia was on the list of 68 countries that on Monday abstained from voting in a United Nations resolution promoted by Ukraine and the European Union demanding that Russia withdraw “immediately, completely and unconditionally all its military forces” from Ukraine.
The far-left president reiterated his purported neutrality last week in one of his usual lengthy Twitter rants. In his message, Petro asserted that the ongoing conflict was a “war between brothers, armed by powers external to the Slavic peoples.” Petro also accused the United States of “betraying” Zelensky and Europe after allegedly first getting both into the war.
Petro was initially among the foreign heads of state who had confirmed their participation at a Summit for Peace in Ukraine hosted by Switzerland in mid-June 2024, where he was reportedly slated to hold a meeting with Zelensky.
The Far-left president abruptly cancelled his participation hours before the start of the summit and asserted on social media that the event was not a free forum for discussing the paths to peace between Russia and Ukraine.
“Dialogue between Russia and Ukraine is essential. The establishment of a nuclear-free security zone that physically separates NATO from Russia, which allows for the permanent security of the former Soviet nations and Eastern Europe, absolute respect for the Russian and Ukrainian peoples within Ukraine and Russia. The prudence of the European Union in its expansion so as not to unleash war,” Petro said at the time.
“The Colombian government of change will participate in all efforts to build dialogue and peace between Russia and Ukraine and to stop the genocide against the Palestinian people,” he continued.
Petro announced the abrupt cancellation of his attendance at the Swiss-hosted summit while he was undertaking an official tour of Europe that saw him visit Stockholm, Sweden, prior to the start of the summit. Petro availed himself of his official visit to Sweden in June to meet with former M19 members living there, who passed down to him a hat that once belonged to Carlos Pizarro, one of M19’s founders. Days later, Petro had the hat designated part of Colombia’s “cultural heritage,” granting it special protections under Colombian law — eliciting fierce outrage from Colombian politicians and relatives of victims of the Marxist terror group.
Weeks after taking office in August 2022, Petro, in his debut speech at the United Nations General Assembly, called for peace between Ukraine and Russia but abstained from denouncing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Hours later, he announced that he was working on a joint statement with leftist former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to stop the war in Ukraine, which ultimately yielded no results.
In his 2023 U.N. General Assembly speech Petro asked, “What’s the difference between Ukraine and Palestine?” and argued that the same reasons expressed to defend Zelensky apply to Palestinians. Petro further claimed that an unnamed “world power” helped start the war on Ukraine because it was convenient for its “Game of Thrones” and “Hunger Games.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.