'Dictator without elections'?: fact-checking Trump's main criticisms of Zelensky
- Published on February 24, 2025 at 12:25
- 5 min read
- By Marion DAUTRY, AFP France
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Trump calls Zelensky a 'dictator without elections'
Donald Trump on February 19 called Zelensky "a dictator without elections", a day after claiming the Ukraine leader had only a four percent "approval rating" in polls (archived link).
Trump did not say where the four percent figure came from. Zelensky told reporters it was a Russian figure and that Ukraine had "proof" that it had been used in talks between Russian and US officials.
Some Russian media have used the four percent figure, quoting a poll on the Telegram social media channel by Ukrainian pro-Russian deputy, Oleksandr Dubinsky, who was sanctioned by the US administration in 2021.
According to a survey carried out this month by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Zelensky has a 57 percent approval rating.
Even if this is down from the 90 percent peak just after Russia's 2022 invasion, this is a sign that Zelensky is "maintaining his legitimacy", the institute said (archived link).
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly called Zelensky an illegitimate ruler because he has not called an election since winning a five year term in May 2019.
But Ukraine's martial law voted in on the day of the Russian invasion precludes any elections.
AFP previously fact-checked misleading publications in 2023 that accused the Ukrainian president of seizing power. Zelensky explained to the BBC that elections can only be held in peacetime.
Who started the war?
At a press briefing on Tuesday, Trump indicated that Ukraine caused the February 24, 2022 invasion. Russia has since taken about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory.
"You should have never started it, you should have made a deal," Trump said of Ukrainian protests over talks on the war between top US and Russian officials in Riyadh.
Trump was again echoing Russian comments. "It was they who started the war in 2014," Putin said in an interview with conservative US commentator Tucker Carlson.
Trump's former vice president Mike Pence countered his claim on X. "Mr President, Ukraine did not 'start' this war. Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion," Pence said (archived link). "The Road to Peace must be built on the Truth."
The conflict between Ukraine and Russia dates back to February 2014, when pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia in the wake of the pro-European Maidan revolt. Russian special forces operating incognito took control of the Ukrainian Crimea a few days later, before a formal annexation not recognized by the majority of the international community.
The conflict then spread to the Donbass, where Moscow fomented an armed conflict against Kyiv with the help of pro-Russian separatist forces. Russia massed its forces at the border and the first tanks entered Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion.
'$350 billion' in US aid?
Trump repeated on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday that Zelensky "talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion, to go into a war that couldn't be won, that never had to start" (archived link).
The previous day he said Zelensky told him he did not know where half of the US money had gone, perhaps misunderstanding a claim the Ukrainian leader has made that more than half the aid has not been delivered.
He told the Associated Press on February 1 that Ukraine had received "just over" $75 billion of the $177 billion in aid voted by the US Congress, mostly as military equipment.
The US State Department said on January 20 that since Russia's invasion, the United States has provided Ukraine with $65.9 billion in military aid (archived link).
The Kiel Institute, a German economic research body, said that from 2022 until the end of 2024, the United States gave 114.2 billion euros ($119.8 billion) in financial, humanitarian and military aid -- with 64 billion euros in military help (archived link).
US more generous than Europe?
Trump also said Europe's aid to Ukraine was a "very much smaller percentage". The Kiel Institute said Europe has been Ukraine's main donor, but that most of the aid has been financial or humanitarian.
"I think Europe has given $100 billion and we've given let's say 300-plus," Trump said this week. "And it's more important for them than it is for us."
"Europe as a whole has clearly overtaken the US in terms of Ukraine aid," the Kiel Institute said, estimating European nations have "allocated" 70 billion euros in financial and humanitarian aid and 62 billion euros in military aid.
'Millions' of dead?
Trump said this week that "millions" had died in the conflict, while neither side has given verifiable figures.
Zelensky told the US channel NBC this month that 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died in the war. Ukrainian war correspondent Yuriy Butusov in December quoted military sources as saying 70,000 Ukrainian dead.
Russia has not given a toll since the end of 2022 when it acknowledged less than 6,000 soldiers dead. The independent site Mediazona and the BBC, examining multiple public sources including obituaries, reported having identified more than 90,000 Russian soldiers killed (archive link) .
In December, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said there were 700,000 Russian military dead and wounded. To this would be added North Korean soldiers: 1,100 according to Seoul, 3,000 according to Kyiv.
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) recorded in January 2025 that 12,600 civilians were killed and some 29,000 others were injured on the Ukrainian side (archived link), emphasising that the actual toll is "probably much, much higher."
The 2022 siege of the city of Mariupol, now under Russian control, left between 20,000 and 80,000 dead, according to Ukrainian officials.
All our fact-checks on the war in Ukraine can be found here.
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