After a bitter rift with Donald Trump left many in Ukraine fearing that the US president had swung behind Russia again, President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the dispute head on: there’s nothing personal between me and Trump, he told CNN, but cozying up to Vladimir Putin would only “make him stronger.”

Ties between the US and Ukraine have badly deteriorated in recent weeks.

Zelensky said Trump was “on the wrong side of history” after he announced a deal to buy Russian fuel, upending international efforts to isolate Russia. Trump then waived some sanctions against Russia, drawing criticism even from his own party. Ukraine’s forces found their access to the Elon Musk-run Starlink service restricted.

Speaking to CNN from Kyiv on Thursday, Zelensky took a conciliatory tone, saying the tensions were “not about personalities” – but warned that Putin had no intention of stopping the war.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I applaud Zelensky for his restraint.

    Because there is absolutely no way it isn’t personal. This pedo rapist traitor is betraying Zelensky’s country and siding with its enemy as it’s being invaded and a ton of his countrymen are being killed.

    It’s WAY personal.

  • lntl@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    Do people believe there was any personal feelings, hard or otherwise, between these two? It all seems very transactional to me.

  • clanker_victim_555@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Ever the diplomat. I’m sure he’d like to put Trump in the Hague right next to Putin. Assuming they survive that far.

  • John Richard@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Awe, now him and Trump can be friends again and he can cater, praise, kowtow to him like before. Did he also say how much he misses his dear friend Lindsay Graham?

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      Dude has his entire country on the line. Wtf are you saying? If you had to save your entire family, you would shower praising words on your blackmailer too.

      • John Richard@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        No I wouldn’t. Zelensky has continually legitimized fascists like Trump to fight a proxy war for a neocon colonialist empire by kidnapping and beating his own citizens. Everyday the mass busification videos are shown and people claiming to care about Ukrainians downplay them with comments like this gem from a video today:

        “It should be treachery and punishable by death if your not willing to go defend…”

        He refuses to even hold elections to make his own people’s voices heard.

        • scholar@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          He refuses is legally unable to hold elections while 20% of his country is under Russian occupation.

            • LocalAreaMan@lemmy.ml
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              3 days ago

              Whose being bombed? This isn’t Gaza. It’s had the lowest civilian death rate than any major conflict in modern history.

              The people dying are forced conscripts being kidnapped ICE style

              https://busification.org/en

              • CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org
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                3 days ago

                There are civilian casualties from Russian bombing almost every day. Today I heard explosions twice where I live.

                Busification? Yes, it is an issue. You know what’s also an issue? A blood-thirsty dictator, who just won’t let go of his ambitions.

                Ukraine specifically asked, that in case we’d surrender districts (none of which Russia fully controls to this day btw), surrender the fortress belt, there’d be guarantees for peace. Guess who doesn’t want to agree to those terms. Guess who doesn’t agree to a moratorium on civilian infrastructure strikes. Guess which side of this conflict practices human safari in Kherson. Guess which country demonized their neighbor since 2003. Guess which country expressed the sentiment that their neighbouring country shouldn’t exist.

                What you’re doing is that you’re shifting the blame from the aggressor and the initiator. There was no busification before 2022. Why? Take a wild fucking guess.

                • LocalAreaMan@lemmy.ml
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                  2 days ago

                  Every accusation is a confession. Russians doing safaris? WTF? Azov Brigade trustmebro bedtime stories.

                  Democracy is derived from the individual only, not race, not religion, not ethnicity, not arbitrary borders, and not even nations themselves.

                  Individuals have a right to exist, not nations. Millions of people stopped being “Ukrainian” the moment their democratically elected government was overthrown by a Svoboda led fascist mob.

                  Sorry, but not sorry.

                  Your grandchildren’s grandchildren will be paying off generational debt from predatory military and IMF loans. You’re a nation of orphans and widows, neofeudal serfs that are tied to a land they can’t even leave, all now owned by your Blackrock lords.

                  Annexation would make that disappear overnight.

                  🫰💨

              • scholar@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                Ignoring that Ukraine’s cities are bombed by drone swarms and missiles every day, why are the conscripts dying? Because Russia is invading their country.

                • LocalAreaMan@lemmy.ml
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                  2 days ago

                  But it’s not the Banderites’ country. Crimea and the Donbass stopped being Ukraine in 2014. Russia annexed them because Zelensky was powerless to stop the Azov Brigade from shelling civilians in the Donetsk city center. This was after Zelensky campaigned and won on the promise of peace through the Minsk Agreement.

                  Now he’s just a kapo stooge who will never outlive his usefulness to these Banderites.

            • shalafi@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              The United States held elections during the Civil War, so there’s that.

          • LocalAreaMan@lemmy.ml
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            3 days ago

            Bullshit. That was only inserted illegally after the Svoboda led coup.

            They can vote in Eurovision singing contests but can’t choose their own government.

            • scholar@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              I know in Russia elections don’t mean much, but in democracies there is a difference between electing a government and voting in Eurovision.

              • LocalAreaMan@lemmy.ml
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                2 days ago

                Putin is massively popular in Russia, even by Western polling. You are NOT the global arbitrator for who gets to vote, who “voted wrong”.

                America directly arms over 80% of all dictatorships globally. We’re the least democratic nation on Earth for that reason alone.

                Democracy to you is just a privilege enjoyed on the backs of the oppressed, a selective cudgel weaponized to steal natural resources.

                It was never about democracy.

                • scholar@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  Democracy to me is when you have fair, free, elections, with candidates that offer different views. This is something the US just about has, and Russia does not.

                  Voter fraud and the suppression of political opposition prevent a legitimate democratic process.

                  The fact that you can’t tell the difference between that and a song contest tells all.

        • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Now your entire family is dead, but I guess you still have your pride. And that’s what’s most important, right?