Fact check: Trump’s ‘dictator’ attacks on Zelensky

WARSAW - Attacks by US President Donald Trump on Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky have deepened a crisis between the two leaders, as Ukraine’s war with Russia approaches its third anniversary.

AFP fact-checked some of the statements by the US leader:

A ‘dictator without elections’

The US President on Feb 19

called Mr Zelensky a “dictator without elections”,

a day after saying the Ukraine leader had only a 4 per cent “approval rating” in polls.

Mr Trump did not say where the 4 per cent figure came from. Mr Zelensky told reporters it was a Russian figure and that Ukraine had “proof” that it had been used in talks between Russian and US officials.

Some Russian media has used the 4 per cent figure, quoting a poll on the Telegram social media channel by pro-Russian deputy, Mr Oleksandr Dubinsky, who was sanctioned by the US administration in 2021.

According to a survey carried out in February by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Mr Zelensky has a 57 per cent approval rating. Even if this is down from the 90 per cent peak just after Russia’s 2022 invasion, this is a sign that Mr Zelensky is “maintaining his legitimacy”, the institute said.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly called Mr Zelensky an illegitimate ruler because he has not called an election since winning a five-year term in May 2019.

But Ukraine’s martial law, voted in on the day of the Russian invasion, precludes any elections.

Who started the war?

At a press briefing on Feb 18, Mr Trump indicated that Ukraine caused the Feb 24, 2022, invasion. Russia has since taken about 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory.

“You should have never started it, you should have made a deal,” Mr Trump said, of Ukrainian protests over talks on the war between top US and Russian officials in Riyadh.

Mr Trump is again echoing Russian comments. “It was they who started the war in 2014,” Mr Putin said in an interview with conservative US commentator Tucker Carlson. Pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych fled a pro-European uprising to Moscow in 2014 and Russian forces entered Crimea.

Mr Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence countered his claim on social media platform X.

“Mr President, Ukraine did not ‘start’ this war. Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion,” Mr Pence said. “The Road to Peace must be built on the Truth.”

US aid to Ukraine

Mr Trump repeated on his Truth Social platform on Feb 19 that Mr Zelensky “talked the United States of America into spending US$350 billion (S$467 billion), to go into a war that couldn’t be won, that never had to start”.

The previous day he said Mr Zelensky told him he did not know where half of the US money had gone, perhaps misunderstanding a claim the Ukrainian leader has made that more than half the aid has not been delivered.

He told the Associated Press on Feb 1 that Ukraine had received “just over” US$75 billion of the US$177 billion in aid voted by the US Congress, mostly as military equipment.

The US State Department said on Jan 20 that since Russia’s invasion, the US has provided Ukraine with US$65.9 billion in military aid.

The Kiel Institute, a German economic research body, said that from 2022 until the end of 2024, the US gave €114.2 billion (S$160 billion) in financial, humanitarian and military aid – with €64 billion in military help.

Europe’s aid to Ukraine

Mr Trump also said Europe’s aid to Ukraine was a “very much smaller percentage”. The Kiel Institute said Europe has been Ukraine’s main donor, but that most of the aid has been financial or humanitarian.

“I think Europe has given US$100 billion, and we’ve given, let’s say, US$300-plus billion,” Mr Trump said this week. “And it’s more important for them than it is for us.”

“Europe as a whole has clearly overtaken the US in terms of Ukraine aid,” the Kiel Institute said, estimating European nations have allocated €70 billion in financial and humanitarian aid and €62 billion in military aid.

‘Millions’ of dead?

Mr Trump said this week that “millions” had died in the conflict, while neither side has given verifiable figures.

Mr Zelensky told the US channel NBC in February that 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died in the war. Ukrainian war correspondent Yuriy Butusov in December quoted military sources as saying there were 70,000 Ukrainian dead. The 2022 siege of the city of Mariupol, now under Russian control, left between 20,000 and 80,000 dead, according to Ukrainian officials.

Russia has not given a toll since the end of 2022 when it acknowledged less than 6,000 soldiers dead. In December, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said there were 700,000 Russian military dead and wounded. AFP