Donald Trump made clear that his personal grudge with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky hasn’t abated during a phone interview with NBC News.
Speaking with Meet the Press anchor Kristen Welker on Saturday, the president knocked Zelensky for offering assistance to the U.S. and Middle Eastern countries, the latter of which the Ukrainian president said on Friday were seeking his aid in sharing drone detection technology.
The “last person we need help from is Zelensky,” Trump told Welker.
This isn’t about Zelenski, Trump has a grudge against any political leader that isn’t corrupt.
Zelensky was the proximate cause of Trump’s first impeachment, right? The perfect phone call?
I think that Trump does have a grudge against Zelensky.
Do you mean Zelenskyy is not corrupt?
There is probably a sprinkle of corruption, but at least Zelensky isn’t on the Bored Of Peace
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just because Ukraine is the victim in a conflict. It’s one of the top 3 most corrupt countries on the entire European continent, and sadly, the war only made it worse.
Of course, we should be treating Ukraine as a potential long-term ally and partner, and helping it defend as well as rebuild itself. However, we cannot ignore its shortcomings. At this point, the Ukrainian government has practically full reign over everything in the country with no oversight at any level.
Some of it can be blamed on the war, maybe. But absolutely not all of it. Not even half. Corruption is a long running issue in Ukraine, which we should be helping it with, probably after the war ends. If Ukraine wants help, of course. Or if it wants to join the EU, in which case it’d be non-negotiable.
Even the most corrupt European nation is only a fraction as corrupt as the USA.
France is probably the most educated and politically active population and they still get the same wanker laws being handed down by the same billionaires
Oh stop they’re all entangled by the same damn financial interests.
A secret pedophile ring run by american billionaires and the American government actively defending them and protecting them, because the president himself is a corrupt pedophile, is the most corrupt thing I know of in this day of politics.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of American corruption.
How many billions in bribes did Trump receive?
How many international laws did the Trump admin break?
How many national laws did the Trump admin break?
How many lies did Trump tell and deceive the population?
Shit I know. I’m watching him rob me blind. Doesn’t change the fact that European politics share financial interests with the evil empire. You guys had no problem investing your pension funds in the bombing. You buy the bombs. Get the fuck outta here. Just watched you all cave to Russia over natural gas prices 🤣
Has nordstream ever stopped pumping?
Give me a list of your top 5 most corrupt European nations.
Bosnia, Serbia, Belarus, Turkey, Russia
All more corrupt than Ukraine.
I don’t know about top 5, but top 3 would probably consist of Belarus, Hungary and Ukraine, in this order.
We usually think that Ukraine isn’t severely corrupt, just because it’s western-aligned. But that’s not what corruption means.
Are you suggesting Russia is less corrupt?
I know Ukraine has had many problems with corruption, but at least they’re trying to do something about it. Although unfortunately they do have more pressing matters at the moment. Russia embraces its corruption. As does the US, for that matter.
Absolutely not. As a European, I don’t consider Russia as part of Europe in terms of geopolitics.
According to a corruption perceptions index someone linked (idk how reliable), Russia is almost at the bottom of the list, so it’d probably be top 1 in Europe.
But Ukraine is actively trying to rid itself of corruption? While several others aren’t bothering at all.
Edit: technically Russia is European. So that should be automatically #1.
Is it though? Before the war, its efforts were dissappinting at best. Right now, they’re nonexistent.
The Ukrainian government has just recently given the president the ability to hand pick people to oversee the president, effectively dismantling the entire office responsible for overseeing him.
Again, in case I failed to convey this point in prior comments, I’m not saying Ukraine is evil or that we should not support it. I’m all for supporting it and having it join the EU in the future, but at the same time I want to highlight the issues it’s facing, both internal and external.
Don’t bother, you’re in an echo-chamber: Ukraine good, Russia bad, Iran bad, chest-thumping.
Nuance is a foreign concept.
Damn you missed out on a bunch of good opportunities. So you’re like 15 years behind on modern history. geography and politics leaves a lot to be desired.
You’re clearly a college educated American, by this level of knowledge being demonstrated. I’m always thrilled to see the value of those college degrees on display.
You are perfectly welcome to contribute your input, if you have any. Preferably without insinuations or insults, as I’d expect from a well educated person.
I did contribute. I’m not well educated, I just read the ‘world’ section of the news paper. I’m an asshole and I call em like I see em. You should feel shame for sharing baseless propaganda. That’s how I contribute. ❤️
Why the need of personal attacks?
Had you considered how many lives this Russian information war has cost over the last decade? Just because my bitch made president bows to them doesn’t mean I have to.
Idk did they need to attack my democracy and dismantle it with money and corruption and kid fucking?
Because I’m tired of people sharing baseless propaganda that was demonstrably false 10 years ago…. You want a piece of this too?
Ya according to 2013 stats which you guys love to pretend are still relevant and not related to the Russians that had a strangle hold on the government and got thrown out.
More Russians = more corrupt.
Who is ‘you guys’ and what statistics are you referring to?
‘You guys’: a russian stooge. Paid or worse.
Corruption Perceptions Index 2025 - Transparency.org https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2025
According to this list Ukraine is the 104th country by corruption (104th least corrupt worldwide), out of 182 countries/territories ranked.
Unless I missed something, it also appears to be taking the spot of the top 5 most corrupt country in Europe (not counting Russia, 6th if you do count it), behind only: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Belarus, and Syria.
Swap Turkey for Syria and i agree with your summary.
Consider the subjectivity of a “perceptions” index. And also, based on my own direct experience of corruption while doing business in a few countries, Transparency International’s rankings bore no relationship to what I was seeing. Societies whose elites are skilled at concealing corruption tend to have lower perception rankings than those where the elites are more flagrant, even when the actual corruption is the same in both cases. Not to mention that those doing the reporting are people doing business in those countries, and such people rapidly adapt to the local conditions.
I understand that hard data isn’t easy to come by, but using a perceptions index as a proxy is methodologically very questionable.
The sources and surveys which make up the CPI are based on carefully designed and calibrated questionnaires, answered by experts and business people.
As long as these questions are consistent then it seems fine as a data source.
It’s easy to criticise but hard to improve. If you’d like to augment this with another data source then I’d be interested.
One of the few that aren’t in the Epstein files. These days that’s enough.
The fact that Trump hates him is probably pretty good evidence that at least he’s not corrupt enough to suit Trump. I’m wary of any politician that Trump loves. Although there are two notable exceptions to that rule: Zoran Mamdani and Alexander Stubb. No idea how they do it.