BERLIN

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday criticized US President Donald Trump for calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator.”

“It is simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelenskyy his democratic legitimacy,” Scholz told the Der Spiegel news magazine.

“It is true that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the elected head of state of Ukraine. The fact that no proper elections can be held in the middle of a war is in line with the Ukrainian constitution and electoral laws. No one should claim otherwise,” he added.

The chancellor recalled that it was Russia under President Vladimir Putin that started the war in Ukraine.

“Ukraine has been defending itself against a merciless Russian war of aggression for almost three years. Day after day,” Scholz said.

Meanwhile, Christian Democratic chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz strongly rejected statements made by Trump about Ukraine.

Commenting on Trump's statement that the government in Kyiv is partly to blame for the Russian war of aggression and could have brought peace itself long ago, the chancellor candidate front-runner told public broadcaster ARD.

“This is basically a classic perpetrator-victim reversal,” he said, pointing out that this corresponds to the Russian narrative of President Vladimir Putin.

“And to be honest, I am somewhat shocked that Donald Trump has now obviously adopted this narrative himself,” Merz added.


Trump on Wednesday called the Ukrainian leader a "dictator without elections" and warned that he “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left.”


He posted on Truth Social hours after Zelenskyy hit back at his suggestion that Kyiv "should have never started" the war, saying the US president was living in a Russian "disinformation bubble."


Trump has advanced negotiations to end the three-year-long war in Ukraine, without the participation of Kyiv and other European governments. 


He said Europe has failed to bring peace in Ukraine, and the US was successfully negotiating an end to the war.