Trump says he's running out of patience with Zelensky: 'We won't tolerate him much longer'

WashingtonThe facts had already preceded the words, although they had not generated as much noise as the cries of Donald Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, against Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. Since the Republican arrived at the White House, arms shipments to Ukraine have been slowing down to the point of being on the verge of freezing. The cooling of the shipment of military aid packages was already prior to Trump's booing of Zelensky, which threatens to become a point of no return for Washington's relations with Kiev and Europe, and now the American president seems to want to use it as a pretext to finish the job.

After a relatively silent weekend on the part of Trump, who on Friday went to Mar-a-Lago to play golf with the statement that Zelensky could return when he was "ready" to negotiate peace, this Monday he has resumed the escalation of tension. The American president has published a post on Truth Social Trump has shared a news item in which the Ukrainian stated that the end of the war with Russia is "very far away." "This is the worst statement Zelensky could have made, and the United States will not tolerate it much longer!" wrote the American president. "This man does not want peace as long as he has the support of the United States, and Europe, in its meeting with Zelensky, stated categorically that they cannot do the job without the United States," he added. As he has done with many other issues affecting the country, Trump continues to twist reality with words to portray the conflict as if it were a war between two equal countries, when in reality Russia was the one who started the war by invading the country in 2022. An invasion preceded by the occupation of Crimea in 2014. ~BK_SLT_L

After not even offering him a seat at the negotiating table with Russia on the future of Ukraine, the president wants to redraw Zelensky's image as the one who makes it impossible to end the war as long as he has the military support of the US. The demands that Trump is making of the Ukrainian – which basically seem like a surrender – have not been made at any point to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. On the contrary, negotiations had not started and Washington was already making concessions in favour of Moscow: it does not see it possible to recover the borders prior to the illegal annexation of Crimea, Ukraine cannot enter NATO and the country at war should hold elections.

Zelensky, who on Friday on Fox already said that he wanted to count on the support of the US, has shot down X shortly after. In a kind of indirect response, the Ukrainian president has insisted that Ukraine wants "a real peace" and added: "We have a lot of hope in the support of the US.

50 days without sending weapons to Kiev

Trump raised the tone and made noise again as he is expected to meet with other members of the government on Monday to decide whether to cancel military aid to Ukraine. According to the New York Times, There is even a possibility of cancelling the aid that had already been approved by the previous administration of Joe Biden. According to data from the Pentagon, there are still 3.85 billion dollars authorized by Congress to be used. In principle, the funds allocated by Congress cannot be unilaterally revoked by the president, it is necessary to go through other legislative processes, but since Trump has come to power he has done nothing but try to assault the powers of the legislature via executive orders.

When Zelensky set foot in the White House last Friday he was already aware that the arrival of military aid was almost at a standstill. At the time of the meeting, the Pentagon had not announced any new arms package for Ukraine for fifty days and the new administration had not said anything about approving any other item.

The latest announcement of arms shipments by the Pentagon was on January 9, during the final days of the Biden administration. It was worth about $500 million and included air defense missiles, ground equipment and equipment to support Ukraine in using F-16s. Since the Russian invasion began three years ago, military aid shipments by the Biden administration were announced every two weeks. During the final days of his term, the former president accelerated the shipments in an attempt to strengthen Kiev's position in the face of Trump's arrival in power.