U.S. President Donald Trump and his political allies have recently taken to smearing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator,” which is absurd. Zelenskyy’s governance over Ukraine has been in line with wartime democratic norms, and attempts to claim otherwise are based on distortions and falsehoods.

According to the MAGA movement, Zelenskyy is authoritarian because he has declined to hold new elections while banning certain opposition parties and media outlets. What these critics conveniently omit, though, is that these decisions were motivated by legitimate wartime security concerns and have received broad support from Ukrainian voters.