European leaders back Ukraine's Zelenskyy after Trump calls him a 'dictator'

The UK's Prime Minister Keir Starmer has defended Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump called the Ukrainian leader a "dictator."

Zelenskyy was a "democratically elected leader" and it was "perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during wartime as the UK did during World War II," Downing Street said.

Trump and Zelenskyy traded blows with the Ukrainian leader saying Trump was "living in a disinformation space" governed by Moscow after Trump pushed forward with US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia from which Kyiv was excluded.

Speaking to reporters in Florida, Trump called Zelenskyy a "dictator" and claimed he "refused to have elections" in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy's five-year term was due to end in May 2024. However, elections in Ukraine have been suspended after the country declared martial law in response to Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Trump's comments attracted criticism from multiple European leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who posted on X that "it is simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelenskyy democratic legitimacy."

"The fact that regular elections cannot be held in the middle of a war is in line with the requirements of the Ukrainian constitution and electoral laws. No one should claim otherwise," Scholz said.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson also said Trump's use of the word dictator was "incorrect" while Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the comments "absurd."

"If you look at the real world instead of just firing off a tweet, then you know who in Europe has to live in the conditions of a dictatorship: people in Russia, people in Belarus," Baerbock told public broadcaster ZDF.

The leader of Germany's largest opposition party and frontrunner in Sunday's elections Friedrich Merz said that Trump's comments were "a classic reversal of the role of perpetrator and victim."

"To be honest, I am somewhat shocked that Donald Trump has now obviously made this his own," Merz told broadcaster ARD.

French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X that "Ukraine must always be included and its rights respected" as he outlined three conditions that he described as "France's efforts for peace."

Both Macron and Starmer will head to the White House early next week to discuss the war in Ukraine.

European leaders have reiterated that both they and Ukraine should have a seat at the negotiating table after the US convened talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

The meeting in Riyadh signalled a tectonic shift in relations between the US and Russia, where the two sides agreed to reset relations after three years of US-led efforts to isolate Russia.

Following the meeting, Trump made a series of comments in which he seemed to blame Ukraine for Moscow's full-scale invasion.

“Today I heard, ‘oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years ... You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” Trump said.

In response, Zelenskyy accused Russia of influencing Trump's views during Tuesday's meeting.

"With all due respect to President Donald Trump as a leader ... he is living in this disinformation space," he said.