KYIV, UKRAINE - Ukrainians from across the political spectrum rallied behind President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, decrying President Donald Trump’s claims that he was failing, unpopular, illegitimate and to blame for Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine that has killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.

In a post Wednesday on Truth Social, Trump went on to describe Zelensky as “a Dictator without Elections,” who was soon going to lose his country. The comment was immediately the top of the news in Russian media outlets.

The attack by Trump and the rare show of political unity it elicited from some of Zelensky’s fiercest domestic critics came as Keith Kellogg, Trump’s new envoy for Ukraine and Russia, arrived in Kyiv. The day before, fellow Trump officials broke a long policy of nonengagement with Russia, meeting for talks in Saudi Arabia without Ukraine.

Zelensky shot back at Trump’s earlier accusations that his ratings stood at 4 percent, calling it disinformation “coming from Russia.”

“If anyone wants to replace me right now, then it just isn’t going to happen,” he said at a news conference Wednesday. “I wish Trump’s team had more truth. Because none of this is having a positive effect on Ukraine.”

Zelensky’s popularity has fallen from sky-high levels at the start of the war as the conflict has ground on. Elections were supposed to be held in 2024, but Ukrainian law says voting cannot happen during martial law.

Holding a fair election that meets international standards would be nearly impossible with at least a fifth of the country occupied by Russia, millions of Ukrainians living outside the country and tens of thousands of others deployed to fight.

In his remarks late Tuesday, Trump was asked about Ukraine’s complaints about being excluded from the meetings amid fears that Washington and Moscow will impose a settlement on Ukraine. “Today I heard, ‘Oh, we weren’t invited,’” Trump said.

“Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it,” Trump said. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” Ukraine did not start the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

He also suggested Ukraine must hold elections after falsely claiming that Zelensky’s approval ratings sit at 4 percent.

A survey published Wednesday by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, a prominent Ukrainian polling organization, said 57 percent of Ukrainians trust Zelensky, an increase of five percentage points from a survey in December.

Trump’s call for an election in Ukraine and his false claims about Zelensky’s low approval ratings follow Russian President Vladimir

Putin’s attacks on the Ukrainian leader’s legitimacy and his persistent claim that Zelensky has no legal authority to sign a peace deal.

Russia’s own elections have been criticized by independent observers as deeply flawed, and Putin engineered changes to Russia’s constitution in 2021 enabling him to remain in power until at least 2036.

Trump’s statement that Ukraine started the war also echoes Putin’s assertion that Russia had “no choice” but to attack Ukraine in preemptive self-defense.

Trump’s comments “exactly echoed what Putin wanted,” former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said, and served as a further warning to Europe that the alliances that governed the West for decades could unravel in Putin’s favor.

“It sounds like there was a handout prepared by Lavrov given to Rubio, and now they’re just reading it,” he said, referring to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who met Tuesday.

Trump’s remarks also elicited bafflement from allies, with French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas calling them “diverse, varied and often incomprehensible.”

“We do not understand the American logic very well,” she added.

The comments unleashed a firestorm of support for Zelensky in Ukraine, where the call for elections in particular was seen as a means to sow chaos and divide the country.

“We may like Zelensky, or we may not. We may scold him, or we may praise him. We may condemn his actions, or we may applaud them. Because he is OUR president, as he is,” Borys Filatov, mayor of the central-eastern city of Dnipro, who has regularly criticized Zelensky, wrote on Facebook. “It makes no difference whether he is bad or not. And no lying creature, neither in Moscow, nor in Washington, nor anywhere, has the right to open his mouth against him.”

The support will probably be seen as a welcome buoy for Zelensky in Kyiv at a moment of great political uncertainty, especially as he faced fierce criticism just days ago for slapping sanctions on former president Petro Poroshenko, seen as one of his political rivals.

Lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak, from the opposition Holos party, wrote on Telegram that Ukrainians’ opinions of Zelensky may differ, “but the only people who have the right to assess his support are the citizens of Ukraine.”

When a foreigner insults Zelensky, he wrote, “they are not just attacking a specific surname - they are insulting the president of Ukraine. Just a thought for tomorrow’s social media debates in light of Trump’s statement about the necessity of presidential elections … exactly as the Kremlin wants.”

Prominent blogger Anton Hodza wrote on Facebook that this is the time to unite behind the elected president, whom Trump and Putin are trying to undermine because he won’t surrender the country.

“For Putin, the election outcome itself is less important than the chaos it will create in a country at war. And he will undoubtedly exploit that chaos,” he said.

Maria Berlinska, a prominent military volunteer, wrote, using expletives, that Ukraine should not hold elections until Russian forces withdraw, return prisoners and pay reparations, and partners send peacekeepers to the country.

“They couldn’t break us from the outside, so now they’ll try to destabilize us from within - through elections,” she wrote. “And now they want to tell us when to vote? Putin, who has never won a real election in his life, and Trump, who spent four years in court over his own elections - these two are going to lecture us on fair elections?”

Oleksandr Zinchenko, a prominent documentary director and commentator who regularly criticizes Zelensky, wrote on Facebook that “after Trump’s verbal diarrhea, by tomorrow, Zelensky’s approval rating will be back above 90 percent - just like it was on February 24, three years ago.”

Kellogg used much milder language as he spoke to reporters upon his arrival at Kyiv’s central train station Wednesday.

“We understand the need for security guarantees” for Ukraine, he said in comments that were filmed by a Ukrainian TV station.

“Part of my mission is to sit and listen” and to ask Ukrainians, “What are your concerns?” Kellogg said. “We can go back to the United States, talk to President Trump, and with Secretary Rubio and the rest of the team, and just ensure that we get this one right.”

As the political back-and-forth was taking place, Russian forces continued their aerial assault on Ukraine’s cities. Overnight Tuesday, Kremlin troops launched 167 drones, of which all but five were shot down or failed to reach their targets, Ukraine’s air force said on social media.

In remarks Wednesday, Putin praised the meetings of the U.S. and Russian top diplomats in Riyadh as “friendly” and described how different the U.S. representatives were from their predecessors in the Biden administration.

Putin also said he was looking forward to meeting face-to-face with Trump, referring to him by his first name, though it would take some time to prepare.

“I would love to meet with Donald. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other,” he said with a chuckle. “I would love to meet with him now, as well. I think he will, too.”

Serhii Korolchuk in Kyiv, Robyn Dixon in Riga, Latvia, Catherine Belton in London and Mary Ilyushina in Berlin contributed to this report.