Nigel Farage has defended Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky against Donald Trump's recent criticism, stating firmly that the Ukrainian leader "is not a dictator".
However, the Reform UK leader said the US president "should be taken seriously" but "not always literally" in his comments.
It comes as Donald Trump has launched a scathing attack on the Ukrainian president, labelling him "a dictator without elections" in recent statements.
The US president took to his social media platform TruthSocial to criticise Zelensky's leadership, claiming he had convinced America to spend $350 billion on "a war that couldn't be won".
Nigel Farage claimed that Zelenskyy 'is not a dictator'
GB NEWS
Trump accused Zelensky of being "good at playing Biden 'like a fiddle'" while warning that he "better move fast or he is not going to have a country left".
Nigel Farage told GB News: "You should always take everything Donald Trump says seriously. You shouldn't always take things that Donald Trump says absolutely, literally.
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"I think that applies very much in this case. There's a lot of bad blood between President Trump and previous Ukrainian leaders.
"The impeachment, that happened all because of a relationship between the Ukrainian government and the Biden family.
"So let's be clear, Zelensky is not a dictator. But it's only right and proper that Ukrainians have a timeline for elections.
"I mean, after all, I recently said that I thought Keir Starmer was behaving like a dictator because we've cancelled the vote.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the president of Ukraine
Getty Images"He's cancelled the vote of 5.5 million people in local elections on May the 1st this year. So no, he's not a dictator. But there needs to be a timeline so that the Ukrainian people can vote on a peace deal."
The comments came as White House and Kremlin officials began discussions in Saudi Arabia, notably without Ukrainian representation.
"I love Ukraine, but Zelensky has done a terrible job, his country is shattered," Trump declared, claiming that "MILLIONS have unnecessarily died".
Trump later repeated these assertions at a Saudi-run investment forum in Miami, where he questioned the use of American aid money.
The talks without Kyiv's presence have sparked concern among European leaders, prompting an emergency meeting in France.
A recent survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 57 per cent of Ukrainians trust their president.
This contradicts Trump's assertions about Zelensky's approval ratings, which the Ukrainian president has dismissed as Russian disinformation.
