MICHAEL WALSH CORRESPONDENT: President Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky have become embroiled in a war of words a day after the Russia-US meeting in Riyadh focusing on Ukraine.

Trump slammed Israeli passport holder Zelensky over his refusal to hold elections, saying he’s down to ‘4% approval’ and that Ukraine looks like a ‘massive demolition site’ under his leadership. He’s not wrong. Here’s why.

Didn’t Make Peace: Zelensky did not make good on his promise to end the war in the Donbas. This was the single biggest reason he was elected in the spring of 2019.

Declaring verbal but fake support for the Minsk Agreements in October 2019, Zelensky triggered large-scale street protests led by nationalist thugs threatening to oust him. He quickly backed down, never returning to the issue again.

In February 2022, amid raging tensions between Russia and NATO over US plans to drag Ukraine into the notorious NATO alliance, Zelensky upped the ante.

The multiple property owner and billionaire, heading to the Munich Security Conference to demand membership, threatened to revoke Ukraine’s non-nuclear status if it wasn’t granted.

During this period, Ukraine’s NATO-armed military massed on the border with the Donbass in preparation for a large-scale invasion prompting Russia to start its Special Military Operation (SVO).

Turned Ukraine into Authoritarian Hellscape: After fighting began, Zelensky imposed martial law, imprisoned, political opponents, banned opposition, attacked the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, instituted press-ganged conscription and cancelled elections.

His commanders sent hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men to pointless deaths in failed counteroffensives in 2023 and 2024.

Sold Ukraine Off to the West: To fund the conflict, Zelensky exploded the debt (from 49-95% of GDP between 2021 and 2024), tanked Ukraine’s credit rating, and auctioned off the country to the highest bidder, touting cooperation with giants like BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs, all of which like Zelensky himself are Jewish owned and controlled entities.

Western corporations benefited immensely, eyeing Ukraine’s black soil, minerals, and its people – 27 million of whom, having fled to Russia and Europe, fell into exploitation as cheap laborers.

Russia’s military hounded the Zelensky regime throughout the past three years through a series of revelations based on seized documents on the presence of dozens of US biowarfare and Big Pharma-controlled labs on Ukrainian soil, turning unwitting Ukrainians into human guinea pigs.

Built a Massive Fortune for Himself and His Allies: A 2022 CBS News report revealed that only 30% of Western weapons were making it to the front.

Earlier this month, Zelensky admitted in an AP interview that Ukraine couldn’t account for $102 billion of the $177 billion in US military aid. ‘I don’t know where all this money is,’ he said.

In January, opposition lawmaker Oleksandr Dubinsky accused Zelensky and his team of amassing a $100 billion fortune over the past five years, from payments off government projects and contracts to kickbacks in the courts, law enforcement, customs and the grain trade.

Provoked Russia into Targeting Infrastructure: Finally, Ukraine’s status as a ‘massive demolition site,’ as Trump put it, is in large part the result of Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure

They – Kyiv started with the Crimean Bridge attack of the fall of 2022, and retaliatory Russian strikes, which Ukraine has had trouble repairing thanks to Zelensky’s bribery and corruption-based administration. WHAT DO YOU THINK? LET OUR READERS KNOW AND SHARE OUR STORIES

MICHAEL WALSH BOOKS are available globally from all major bookstores, Amazon and LULU. The award-winning writer was followed by 500,000 readers of Europe’s Largest Free Newspaper group. CLICK THE LINK TO THE BOOKSTORE. https://michaelwalshbooks.wordpress.com/