slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a \u201cdictator without elections\u201d<\/a> and falsely claimed Kyiv had \u201cstarted\u201d the Russian war.<\/p>\nHe also incorrectly stated Zelensky had approval ratings of only 4 per cent.<\/p>\n
Asked on Thursday if Zelensky was a dictator, Defence Minister Richard Marles said \u201cno\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not about to give you a running commentary on what President Trump is saying,\u201d he told Sky News on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Australian position is that we see that the global rules\u2011based order is under threat by what Russia did in respect of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to support Ukraine so that they are able to resolve this conflict on their terms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australia has committed more than $1.5 billion in aid to Ukraine since Russia\u2019s invasion almost three years ago on February 24, 2022.<\/p>\n
Asked if the government was considering sending Australian peacekeepers to Ukraine, Marles said it wasn\u2019t being discussed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of water to go under the bridge before we get to that point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we need to be doing is standing with Ukraine right now, and that\u2019s the Australian position and that\u2019s exactly what we are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was also support for Zelensky from other world leaders after Trump\u2019s astonishing escalation of personal insults.<\/p>\n
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer \u201cexpressed his support for President Zelensky as Ukraine\u2019s democratically elected leader\u201d, a Downing Street spokesman said.<\/p>\n
The spokesman noted that Ukraine went to martial law and had not held an election since the Russian invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n
It was \u201cperfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time, as the UK did during World War II\u201d, the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson criticised Trump\u2019s use of the word \u201cdictator\u201d, while German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the comments \u201cabsurd\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf 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,\u201d she told broadcaster ZDF.<\/p>\n
The White House said Trump\u2019s escalation was a response to Zelensky accusing him of\u00a0\u201cliving in a disinformation space\u201d created by Russia.<\/p>\n
In a pointed threat to Zelensky, Trump also warned on Wednesday (US time) he had \u201cbetter move fast\u201d to reach a peace deal with Russia \u201cor he is not going to have a country left\u201d.<\/p>\n
In less than a week since Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, his rhetoric has strained relations with European nations who disagree with his approach to end the conflict.<\/p>\n
In other developments, Trump\u2019s Russia-Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg was due in Kyiv on Thursday to discuss a possible peace deal.<\/p>\n
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said any terms for a deal to end the conflict must be acceptable to Ukraine and also backed Zelensky.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a legitimate, democratically elected leader of Ukraine and he is fighting an unjust, unlawful, unprovoked invasion by Vladimir Putin, who is responsible for initiating this conflict,\u201d Paterson told Sky News.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe burden falls on Vladimir Putin to stop his invasion, to stop his attack on Ukraine, not on anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australia has joined other Western leaders in standing by Ukraine after US President Donald Trump\u2019s astonishing attack on the war-torn nation\u2019s leader. Trump\u00a0slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a \u201cdictator without elections\u201d and falsely claimed Kyiv had \u201cstarted\u201d the Russian war. He also incorrectly stated Zelensky had approval ratings of only 4 per cent. Asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,62],"tags":[48,19],"class_list":["post-740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-green-is-the-new-black","tag-columns","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":741,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions\/741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}