Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy drew a crowd’s laughter at a European summit on Friday when he wryly smiled in response to a question about US President Donald Trump’s midterm troubles.
“President Trump is facing pretty difficult midterm elections: His personal popularity is very low, diesel prices in the US are very high, and the war that he started in the Middle East is not going the way he wants it,” Sky News reporter Alistair Bunkall told Zelenskyy, then asking, “Do you think you are being treated as a scapegoat for his own problems?”
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Zelenskyy looked down at his lectern and waited for about eight seconds before smiling at the audience, causing the audience to begin laughing.
“This is my answer,” Zelenskyy said.
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Yesterday, Trump blamed Zelenskyy for rising fuel prices in the US, which have largely risen because Trump started a war with Iran, causing the country to close the Strait of Hormuz, a major waterway used to transport fuel and other resources internationally.
When asked on Thursday about Ukrainian military forces targeting Russian fuel sites amid Russia’s continuing four-year invasion of Ukraine, Trump said, “If you tell me that Zelenskyy is again shooting at [Russia’s] refineries, all he’s doing is making the world oil price higher. I think that’s a disgrace. There’s plenty of other targets; they don’t have to hit.”
“Zelenskyy is not a good guy for us to deal with,” Trump added, saying, “I think they actually both would like to see it end, but I think I find Zelenskyy to be more difficult to deal with than [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”
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