Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, February 19, said Donald Trump was living in a Russian "disinformation space," responding to scathing comments by the US president that Zelensky's popularity rating was just at 4%. "Unfortunately, President Trump, who we have great respect for as leader of the American people ... lives in this disinformation space," Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv, accusing Moscow of misleading Trump.
Calling for presidential elections in Ukraine, which are banned under martial law, Trump said Tuesday of Zelensky: "He's down at 4% approval rating." Zelensky said the figure "comes from Russia."
A telephone poll of 1,000 people by the respected Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, published Wednesday, found that 57% of respondents trusted Zelensky, while 37% said they did not and the rest were undecided.
Trump's comments came after the US and Russian foreign ministers held talks in Saudi Arabia
– their first since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 – on resetting relations and finding a way to end the conflict. Talks that Kyiv was not invited to attend.
"I believe that the United States helped Putin to break out of years of isolation," Zelensky told the reporters. "All of this has no positive impact on Ukraine," he added.
Zelensky also said he wanted to get solid security guarantees from Kyiv's Western partners that would enable the war with Russia to end in 2025. "We want security guarantees this year, because we want to end the war this year."
Kyiv and its European allies have become alarmed at being cut out of the process with Russia to end the conflict.