Zelensky says Trump in ‘disinformation space’ after claim that Kyiv started war

Volodymyr Zelensky has said Donald Trump is living in a “disinformation space” after the US president appeared to blame Ukraine for the war with Russia.

The Ukrainian president also said he would not “sell” his nation after Russia and the US started talks to broker a peace deal without Ukraine.

“I am protecting Ukraine, I can’t sell it away, I can’t sell our state,” he told a press conference on Wednesday.

“With all due respect to President Donald Trump, as the leader of a nation that we respect greatly… (he) is living in this disinformation space.”

UK Defence Secretary John Healey will travel to meet his Norwegian counterpart as Europe scrambles to respond to the turmoil over the future of Ukraine and what it could mean for wider continental security.

Mr Trump had said he was “disappointed” that Mr Zelensky had complained about being left out of talks and suggested Kyiv should have been willing to make concessions to Moscow.

“You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” the US president said to reporters on Tuesday.

It was the latest in a series of controversial interventions by the Trump administration, but former UK prime minister Boris Johnson claimed the president’s statements are “not intended to be historically accurate but to shock Europeans into action”.

Last week Washington suggested that Nato membership for Ukraine could be off the table and Mr Zelensky would have to cede territory to Russia.

It comes ahead of Sir Keir Starmer’s visit to Washington next week, as Britain seeks to strike a delicate balance between supporting Ukraine and keeping the White House on side.

Mr Johnson asked when Europeans will “stop being scandalised about Donald Trump and start helping him to end this war?”

In a message posted on X, Mr Johnson said: “Of course Ukraine didn’t start the war. You might as well say that America attacked Japan at Pearl Harbor.

“Of course a country undergoing a violent invasion should not be staging elections. There was no general election in the UK from 1935 to 1945.

“Of course Zelensky’s ratings are not 4%. They are actually about the same as Trump’s.”

Mr Johnson later added: “The US believes Belgium, France and other countries are blocking. It’s absurd. We need to get serious and fast.”

Sir Keir earlier this week urged the US to provide a “backstop” to any settlement between Kyiv and Moscow, and in talks next week he is expected to make the case for US security guarantees on any peace deal. Mr Trump has said the US does not “need” to deploy peacekeeping troops.

Washington and Moscow started talks earlier this week to broker a peace in Ukraine, led by US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

Ukraine was not invited to the negotiations which took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and concluded with ground rules for further diplomacy. European countries were also locked out of the talks.

Sir Ben Wallace – who was defence secretary under Mr Johnson – suggested the talks may have been a waste of time.

He posted on X: “I think what President Trump is learning is that if you have no skin in the game you don’t get to decide the fate of Ukraine. I am sure they all enjoyed their 4 hour talks today but they probably shouldn’t have wasted their time.”

Home Office minister Dame Diana Johnson declined to comment on Mr Trump’s latest remarks on Wednesday.

Asked whether the Government would be calling out the comments, she told LBC: “I’m a minister in the British Government. I’m not commenting on what is coming out of the United States, what the headlines are.

“What I do know is that the Prime Minister is working very hard at the moment to ensure that we play our part in making sure that the security guarantees around any negotiated deal are there.

“The Prime Minister has been to Paris this week to speak to European colleagues. He’s going to America next week to speak to the president.”

Sir John Whittingdale, who sits on the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, described Mr Trump’s comments as “very disappointing and extremely worrying”.

The Conservative former minister told the PA news agency: “They portray such a complete misunderstanding of how this war came about and if that is the stance he is going to take in the negotiations taking place with Putin then I’m filled with anxiety that this may result in a complete sellout of Ukraine.

“If that is his position going forward into those talks, then he’s already conceded to Putin half of what Putin wants.”

Labour London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, who has had a fractious relationship with Mr Trump in the past, said it “beggars belief” that the president is “rewarding the aggressor”.

During a phone-in on LBC, he said: “We have tens of thousands of Ukrainians who are refugees in our city because of Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

“What beggars belief is for the president of the USA apparently rewarding the aggressor, not just in terms of giving him the 20% of Ukraine that they currently occupy, but also somehow blaming President Zelensky for what’s happened over the last two years.”

Mr Healey is expected to meet Norwegian minister Tore Sandvik as part of his trip this week.

On Tuesday, Mr Healey said details of a US security guarantee for Ukraine are “being developed” and decisions made in the next few weeks will define “the security of our world for a generation”.

He added: “We’re in a new era of threat, and that demands a new era for defence, and in the middle of everything else, last week, the new defence secretary, Pete Hegseth from the US and I, made time to discuss the aims we share on defence reform.”