Delusional of Trump to say Ukraine led by authoritarian regime, Sam Kiley tells Newsnight

Sam Kiley: Delusional of Trump to say Ukraine led by authoritarian regimeBBC Newsnight

Transcript

00:00Well, it's quite startling, isn't it, to hear a US president essentially undermine the status

00:07of a fellow president in a democracy.

00:09It is true that Ukraine is under martial law.

00:12It's under martial law because it got invaded by Russia.

00:15It is true that it's been a year since Zelensky would have been due to face elections had

00:21his country not been invaded.

00:23I've no idea about those lunatic opinion polls that he quotes.

00:27The scale of the destruction in places like Mariupol is total.

00:32In a great deal of the rest of the country, it is certainly not 20% in the city.

00:36So it's delusional, but it is singing directly from the Kremlin song sheet.

00:42Sergei Lavrov, when he arrived in Saudi Arabia this morning, his new line coming out of the

00:48Russian delegation is to cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Zelensky.

00:53And then, boom, we hear straight from the mouth of the American president exactly the

00:58same thing.

00:59They are singing the same song as the Kremlin.