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WASHINGTON (AP) — A top White House official said Thursday that President Donald Trump’s increasingly tough criticism of Volodymyr Zelenskyy reflects the administration’s growing frustration with what they see as the Ukrainian leader creating roadblocks to finding an endgame to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The comments from White House national security adviser Mike Waltz came a day after Trump described Zelenskyy as a “dictator” and warned that he “better move fast” to negotiate an end to the war or risk not having a nation to lead. Zelenskyy earlier Wednesday had said Trump was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”
“His frustration with President Zelenskyy that you heard is multifold,” Waltz said Thursday of Trump. “There needs to be a deep appreciation for what the American people and the American taxpayer, what President Trump did in his first term and what we’ve done since. There’s some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv, frankly, and insults to President Trump (that) were unacceptable.”
Waltz, speaking at a White House press briefing, did not respond when asked whether Trump sees Russian President Vladimir Putin as a dictator and didn’t directly answer a separate question about whether Trump thinks Zelenskyy or Putin is more responsible for the war.
The escalating rhetoric comes just days before the third anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine and as the U.S. posture toward both countries has dramatically shifted under the new Trump administration. Trump has been pushing for a peace deal between the two countries while blaming Zelenskyy for allowing the war to start in the first place — not mentioning that Putin ordered the invasion of a sovereign nation.
Waltz noted that Trump is also frustrated that Zelenskyy rejected an offer presented last week by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that would have given the U.S. access to Ukraine’s critical minerals as repayment for U.S. support during the war as well as future aid for Ukraine.
U.S. officials also presented the deal during a meeting between Vice President JD Vance and Zelenskyy in Munich days after the Bessent meeting. But Zelenskyy directed his ministers not to sign off on deal, which he believed lacked sufficient security guarantees for the Ukraine side and was too U.S.-focused.
“Rather than enter into some constructive conversations about what that deal should be going forward, we got a lot of rhetoric in the media that was incredibly unfortunate,” Waltz said of the Ukrainians’ decision to decline the American offer.
Trump earlier this week suggested Ukraine was to blame for starting the war even though the smaller nation was invaded by Russia in February 2022. Asked whether Trump believed Putin or Zelenskyy was more responsible for the grinding war, Waltz offered a roundabout response.
“His goal here is to bring this war to an end, period,” Waltz said of Trump. “And there has been ongoing fighting on both sides. It is World War I-style trench warfare.”
The back-and-forth comes amid an escalation of tension between the two leaders and rising concern in many European capitals over the Trump administration’s reengagement with Russia.
Trump dispatched Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Waltz to engage in preliminary talks in Saudi Arabia with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov.
Zelenskyy and some European officials criticized Trump for holding the talks without Ukrainian or European representatives at the table.
