Nigel Farage has contradicted his ally Donald Trump, saying Volodymyr Zelenskyy “is not a dictator” after the US president’s attack on the Ukrainian leader this week.
Farage, who became one of the last UK party leaders to distance himself from Trump’s remarks, said he had been delayed in calling it out earlier because he was heading to the US to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Trump’s savage attack on Zelenskyy shaped by pro-Russian coterie
The US president said on Wednesday that the Ukrainian leader was a “dictator without elections” in a rant on the Truth Social app, and warned Zelenskyy “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left”.
Trump also said Zelenskyy had “done a terrible job”, dismissing the Ukrainian leader as a “modestly successful comedian” who “talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion dollars to go into a war that couldn’t be won, that never had to start”.
Speaking to GB News from Washington DC, Farage said: “You should always take everything Donald Trump says seriously, you shouldn’t always take things Donald Trump says absolutely literally. I think that applies very much in this case.”
He later added: “Let’s be clear, Zelenskyy is not a dictator. But it’s only right and proper that Ukrainians have a timeline for elections.”
Zelenskyy was elected as Ukrainian president in May 2019. Elections were due in 2024 but not held because of martial law.
In a private phone call with Zelenskyy on Wednesday, Keir Starmer expressed his support for Ukraine and said it was “perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time as the UK did during world war 2”, according to a Downing Street spokesperson.
The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, and leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, swiftly made public statements condemning Trump’s remarks. Carla Denyer, the co-leader of the Green party, made a comment criticising the US president’s language shortly before Farage landed in Washington.
The defence secretary, John Healey, compared Zelenskyy to Winston Churchill by not holding elections during war time, as Trump repeated his attacks on the Ukrainian leader.
Speaking at a press conference in Norway, Healey was asked whether the US still had Europe’s best security interests at heart following Trump’s comments.
Healey said: “Europe’s best security interests and America’s best security interests are satisfied by an end to this war in Ukraine and by a strong, unified Nato.
“That’s an argument that we are having and have discussed with the Americans and will continue to make.”
He later added: “This was a man who, stuck in his country, led his country, and still does. He was elected.”
