Setting the Terms for the Negotiation
By 
The simmering feud between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump escalated on Wednesday when Mr. Zelensky said the American leader had been “caught in a web of disinformation” from Russia and Mr. Trump mocked his counterpart as a “dictator without elections” who had done a terrible job as president.
The pointed exchange came one day after officials from the United States and Russia opened talks to end the fighting in Ukraine that excluded the Ukrainian government. Hours after that meeting in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Trump suggested that Ukraine had started the war, a comment that brought a strong rebuttal from Mr. Zelensky on Wednesday morning.
“I would like to have more truth with the Trump team,” Mr. Zelensky said in some of the most overt criticism yet of Mr. Trump and his view of the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Zelensky said that the U.S. president was living in a “circle of disinformation.” He made the remarks to a group of reporters he had summoned to his presidential office in Kyiv, a building still fortified with sandbags to avoid blasts from Russian missiles.
Trump hasn’t been bought and doesn’t owe anything meaningful to Putin. He’s simply part of the Transnational Right and is happy to do favors for his buddies.