VOLODYMYR Zelensky should flee Ukraine “immediately” amid escalating tensions between Washington and Kyiv, insiders in the White House have warned.
US-Ukraine relations exploded this week, with military intelligence suggesting Russia is just days from declaring victory over the almost three-year war.
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Donald Trump and Zelensky have been waging a war of words with the US President openly criticising the Ukrainian leader and branding him a “dictator.”
In response, Kyiv slammed his attempts at peace talks with Russia and accused him of being “in a disinformation bubble”.
As the relationship between the two leaders continues to deteriorate, a source close to the American President told the New York Post “the best case for [Zelensky] and the world is that he leaves to France immediately.”
Asked about the growing tensions between the US and Kyiv, another source close to the White House said the public spat was a long-time coming.
They said: “It’s nothing new to me.
“I heard months ago it’s time for an election and new leadership,”
The “real question is, has anyone told [Trump] they really, really like him?”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency says the Kremlin is only days away from declaring victory in Vladimir Putin’s war.
The Russian leader may portray it as a triumph over NATO as well, amounting to a defeat for the West, according to the GUR.
The agency said: “Russia is preparing to declare an alleged ‘victory’ in the war against Ukraine by the ‘round date’ – 24 February 2025, the third anniversary of the beginning of the full-scale war.
“Moreover, these plans may also include a ‘Russian victory over NATO’, as Muscovite propaganda has long described the war against Ukraine as a war with the Alliance.”
A key aim is to “cover the status of an aggressor and war criminal isolated by the civilised world with the cloak of a supposedly ready for peaceful settlement ‘constructive side of the conflict”.
Countries hostile to Russia gaining territory through its war of aggression will be branded “enemies of peace”.
Lt-Gen Kyrylo Budanov said Putin’s propaganda machine and intelligence services “on instructions from the Kremlin, are stepping up efforts to incite disbelief among Ukrainian society, destabilise the situation inside our country and discredit Ukraine among partner states that provide critical military assistance to our Security and Defence Forces in the fight against the occupiers.”
The diplomatic turmoil escalated after Kyiv rejected the US’s proposed mineral deal as a repayment for military aid.
On Thursday the US cancelled last minute a joint press conference with Zelensky after he met with one of Trump’s envoys.
Wrong, Donald
The Sun Says…
DONALD Trump’s smearing of the Ukraine regime as scam artists who provoked a war using US taxpayers’ money is a rant beneath the dignity of his office.
Almost nothing in it is true.
It reads like a post on a forum for conspiracy theorists. It is an unprecedentedly shocking statement from the President of the United States.
Vladimir Putin has made no secret of his imperialist ambitions, nor his denial of his neighbour’s right to exist as a sovereign, free country.
He invaded Ukraine, butchered and raped its people, stole its children and bombed its cities.
President Zelensky — far from duping anyone or inviting the conflict, far from being a “dictator without elections” — has been a heroic wartime leader who needs Western aid to overcome staggering odds.
The idea he is riding a “gravy train” is laughable. And his people, with whom he remains highly popular whatever Trump claims, have resisted conquest with immense bravery.
It is troubling and short-sighted in the extreme for the so-called leader of the free world to have no interest in a war raging in Europe because he is separated from it by the Atlantic.
America is not a business where Trump, as CEO, has no task except to slash costs and maximise profits. It is the most powerful democracy on Earth with global responsibilities and — let’s be frank — a duty to discern right from wrong with absolute moral clarity.
Others in the White House should urgently point this out.
Trump lashed out at Zelensky on social media and accused him of “refusing to have elections”.
He warned “modestly successful comedian” Zelensky must “move fast or he is not going to have a country left”.
Trump also claimed the Ukrainian president talked the US into “spending $350 billion dollars to go into a war that couldn’t be won”.
He also later insisted he “trusts” that Russia wants peace after branding Zelensky a “dictator without elections”.
While Don’s close ally Elon Musk joined in and branded Zelensky a “despised dictator” in a fiery social media rant.
He said: “If Zelensky was actually loved by the people of Ukraine, he would hold an election.
“He knows he would lose in a landslide.
“In reality, he is despised by the people of Ukraine, which is why he has refused to hold an election.
“I challenge Zelensky to hold an election and refute this. He will not.
“President Trump is right to ignore him and solve for peace independent of the disgusting, massive graft machine feeding off the dead bodies of Ukrainian soldiers.”
Fears have grown over the course of the war ever since Trump bypassed Ukraine and continental leaders to do business directly with Moscow.
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The UK and France have since suggested a peacekeeping plan that UK PM Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are set to propose to Trump in Washington next week.
It is said to involve putting up to 30,000 UK and European troops on the ground, an idea that Putin has said is “unacceptable.”
But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio pushed back against accusations that the Trump administration has given in to Russia, saying Washington first wants to see whether Moscow was “serious”.
He said: “US President Donald Trump “wants this war with Ukraine to end.
“And he wants to know: Are the Russians serious about ending the war, or not serious about ending the war?”
And US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz warned Ukraine‘s leader to stop hurling “insults” at Trump.
He told a Thursday briefing at the White House: “Some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv, frankly, and insults to President Trump were unacceptable.
“President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with President Zelensky, the fact that he hasn’t come to the table, that he hasn’t been willing to take this opportunity that we have offered.
Amid the war of words, Zelensky said he had held a “productive meeting” with US envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv.
“We had a detailed conversation about the battlefield situation, how to return our prisoners of war, and effective security guarantees,” Zelensky said on social media after the meeting.
“Strong Ukraine-U.S. relations benefit the entire world,” he added.
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