Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson dismissed President Donald Trump's strident remarks of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, advising European politicians to focus on ending the war with Russia and not Trump's social media posts.
"When are we Europeans going to stop being scandalised about Donald Trump and start helping him to end this war?" Johnson posted on X adding, "Trump's statements are not intended to be historically accurate but to shock Europeans into action," he added.
Earlier in the day, Trump posted a harsh critique of Zelenskyy where he described the former comedian as "A Dictator without Elections" and said he'd done "a terrible job" managing the country through a time of war. Trump had also told reporters that the Ukrainian president's approval rating was "down to 4%." Zelenskyy pushed back implying that Trump was getting his information from Russia saying, "If we are talking about 4% then we have seen this disinformation, we understand that it comes from Russia. And we have evidence," adding, "With all due respect to President Donald Trump as a leader... he is living in this disinformation space."
"Of course Zelenskyy's ratings are not 4%. They are actually about the same as Trump's," Johnson continued.
Trump had also blasted the Ukrainian president for canceling elections in November of 2023 after he declared martial law following the Russian invasion. His 5-year-term ended in May of 2024 yet has managed to stay in office telling his countrymen at the time, "Now, in wartime, when there are so many challenges, it is absolutely irresponsible to throw the topic of elections into society in a lighthearted and playful way."
While much of world has reacted with trepidation to Trump's "dictator" remarks Johnson saw them as a typical Trump negotiating tactic designed to nudge fellow NATO members into action. German chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was "wrong and dangerous" for Trump to refer to Zelenskyy as a dictator and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Zelenskyy was a "democratically elected leader" and referenced his own country suspending elections during World War II as support for Ukraine doing the same.
An observation that Johnson shared as well adding, "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."
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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