Under President Donald Trump, senior officials and the president himself have said that it is unrealistic for Ukraine to expect to maintain sovereignty over land occupied by Russia going back to 2014 and that its effort to join NATO will not be permitted under a peace negotiation.

Trump has also spearheaded negotiations with Russia to end the war with Ukraine noticeably absent from the talks.

This drastic change has strained relations between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, resulting in the two now publicly trading barbs.

In the process, Trump has made a series of misleading and incorrect statements about the Ukrainian leader and Russia’s war in Ukraine over the last few days.

Ukraine started the war

During a press conference Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump was speaking to reporters about criticism directed at his administration over the absence of Ukraine in negotiations when he said, “you should have never started it,” stating that Zelensky started the war against Russia.

This is incorrect.

The war began Feb. 24, 2022, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that included troops advancing into the Eastern European country from Kremlin ally Belarus.

The invasion occurred after months of Russian buildup along the Ukraine border and weeks of warning from the West and Ukraine that the Kremlin was planning an offensive.

Putin, at the time, described it as a “special military operation” with the goal to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as the Russian leader and his country have long accused Ukraine — though falsely — of harboring neo-Nazi ideologies.

Zelensky has a very low approval rating

During the same Tuesday press conference, Trump, speaking on Russia’s demand for elections be held in Ukraine, said that Zelensky had an approval rating among Ukrainians of 4%.

This does not appear to be correct, and it was unclear where that figure came from.

Polling from leading-research firm Kyiv International Institute of Sociology said that as of December, 52% of Ukrainians trusted Zelensky to 39% who didn’t. The remaining 9% said they were unsure of how they felt.

That number was the latest figure given when Trump spoke. However, polling data released Wednesday shows Zelensky’s approval rating has increased.

On Wednesday, the KIIS released new polling data that shows as of the first half of February, 57% of Ukrainians trust Zelensky to 37% who do not.

“President V. Zelensky retains a fairly high level of trust in society, (in fact, for a democratic society to have a current trust indicator is a very good result!) and even more so retains legitimate,” Anton Hrushetskyi, executive director of KISS, said in comments on the survey results.

“If some international partners and allies are worried about the legitimacy of the president in the context of possible peace negotiations and consider it appropriate to insist on elections, then from the point of view of Ukrainian citizens themselves, there are no problems with this, the current president and the authorities are quite legitimate to conduct complex negotiations, and elections should be held after the war ends and at least Ukraine receives reliable security guarantees.”

It was unclear of where Trump’s purported figures came from.

U.S. has spent more than Europe on Ukraine

Trump has repeatedly stated that the United States has given, committed and allocated more money for Ukraine than Europe.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, Trump accused Zelensky of having “talked” the United States into spending $350 billion “to go into a War that couldn’t be won” and that Washington has spent $200 billion more than Europe.

This is not true.

Not only has Europe committed more to Ukraine than the United States, Washington has not allocated a total $200 billion to Kyiv that Trump says they overspent the European continent.

According to the Ukraine Oversight website of the U.S. government, as of September 30, U.S. funding for Ukraine is nearly $183 billion, with $130.1 billion obligated and $86.7 billion disbursed.

A majority $124.9 came from the Department of Defense, nearly $40 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development, $11 billion from the State Department and $7 billion from other U.S. agencies and also includes funds given to other nations.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks spending on Ukraine, has tallied a different number for U.S. spending on Ukraine: $119.9 billion.

The German think tank states Europe has spent $137.7 billion.

“Europe as a whole has clearly overtaken the the U.S. in terms of Ukraine aid,” the Kiel Institute for the World Economy said in a statement.

Zelensky admits U.S. money sent to Ukraine is missing

Trump has repeated that claim that Zelensky has admitted that aid and money sent to Ukraine has gone missing.

In the same Wednesday Truth Social post, Trump said: “on top of this Zelensky amids that half of the money we sent him is ‘missing.'”

This is incorrect.

Trump appears to be referencing comments made by Zelensky from an interview conducted earlier this month when he said that they’ve only received more than $75 billion.

The Ukrainian president makes the comments in rejecting the idea that Ukraine has received hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons.

He states that they have received about $75 billion, which is a lot, he remarks, but not the $200 billion others speak of.

He never states nor suggests that funding has gone missing. He states they have only received about $75 billion worth of weapons and aid.

Zelensky is a dictator and he refuses to hold elections

Trump called Zelensky a dictator in the same Wednesday Truth Social post.

“A Dictator without Elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” he said.

This is not true.

Zelensky is not a dictator. He was elected to a five-year term as president of Ukraine in April 2019. He won the election against incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in a landslide, securing more than 72% of the vote.

Ukrainian elections were scheduled to be held in March but have been indefinitely postponed by Ukrainian law as the country is under martial law and has been since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.

Olha Aivazovska, head of Ukraine’s Opora election watchdog, told Kyiv Independment, that the election process should begin was a pace agreement has been signed and ratified.

“Then martial law is lifted and a fully fledged, democratic, transparent electoral process begins,” she said.