During a lengthy 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Scott Pelley that Trump's version of Ukraine Russian war is a distortion of reality, while bashing JD Vance for justifying Vladimir Putin's actions.
The Ukrainian president tried to keep his anger tempered when asked about the horrific press conference he was part of with Trump and JD Vance attacking him.
Pelley did not sugarcoat Trump's attempt to blame Ukraine for Russia's attack on their nation.
PELLEY: Those were the points Zelensky struggled to make in February as President Trump opened negotiations with Russia and initially excluded Ukraine.
Then Trump rewrote history, saying falsely that Ukraine had started the war and calling the democratically elected Zelensky a dictator without elections, Zelensky better move fast, or he's not going to have a country left.
When President Trump called you a dictator and said that Ukraine started this war, what did you think?
ZELENSKY: I believe, sadly, Russian narratives are prevailing in the U.S. How is it possible to witness our losses and our suffering, to understand what the Russians are doing, and to still believe that they are not the aggressors, that they did not start this war?
This speaks to the enormous influence of Russia's information policy on America, on U.S. politics and U.S. politicians.
CBS then played more video of Trump attacking Zelensky in the Oval Office.
ZELENSKY: It's a shift in tone, a shift in reality, really, yes, a shift in reality. And I don't want to engage in the altered reality that is being presented to me. First and foremost, we did not launch an attack to start the war.
Zelensky almost called Trump "Putin's puppet" because only a Russian asset would rewrite Russia's incomprehensible attack on Ukraine as if it was somehowe the fault of Ukraine.
ZELENSKY: It seems to me that the Vice President is somehow justifying Putin's actions.
I tried to explain, you can't look for something in the middle.
There is an aggressor, and there is a victim.
The Russians are the aggressor and we are the victim.
Ukraine is the victim. JD Vance precipitated the embarrassing Oval Office presser with his belligerence against Zelensky (using more Russian propaganda), which then signaled Trump to berate the Ukraine president while defending Putin.
By the way, did Russian apologist and avowed Christian Nationalist Representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene, say anything negative about Putin's bombing of Ukraine on Palm Sunday?
