President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that only a true authoritarian would take offense at US President Donald Trump’s recent description of him as an illegitimate “dictator.”
“I certainly would not describe the words Trump used as a compliment. One would be offended by the word dictator if he was a dictator. I’m not. I’m the legally elected president,” Zelensky said during a press conference at the “Ukraine. The Year 2025” forum in Kyiv.
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Trump claimed that Zelensky is a dictator because of the lack of elections in Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion, though elections are prohibited in Ukraine while the country is under martial law. This was written into the Ukrainian Constitution in 2015 under the previous president, Petro Poroshenko.
Zelensky also added that he and US President Donald Trump should meet to discuss an accord granting Washington access to Ukrainian natural resources before any meeting between Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
To make an agreement on Ukrainian security concerns, “we need to meet and talk about it. I think that this meeting should be fair, which means before Trump meets Putin,” Zelensky said.
While responding to previous questions, Zelensky mentioned that Kyiv and Washington were nearer to an agreement on US access to Ukrainian natural resources in exchange for security assistance.
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Zelensky has so far rejected demands from US President Donald Trump’s team to sign over its mineral wealth in exchange for security, but Zelensky said on Friday that the two countries were continuing to work on an agreement and would likely announce a deal soon.
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