Key Putin ally praises Trump as US press conference with Zelensky cancelled

By Riley Stuart in Washington DC - ABC

A joint press conference between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a key Donald Trump advisor was cancelled on Thursday, amid deteriorating relations between Kyiv and Washington.

Retired general Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, has been in Kyiv this week for talks.

He met Zelensky on Thursday, local time, but a press briefing expected afterwards was scrapped at the request of the US, the Ukrainian President's office said.

The last-minute schedule change will heighten concerns in Europe and among Ukraine's other allies about the deepening rift between Kyiv and Washington, which has been it's biggest backer over the course of its three-year war with Russia.

It came just a day after Trump took to social media to describe Zelensky as a "dictator" who was "doing a terrible job".

Earlier in the week, he had repeated the Kremlin lie that Ukraine was responsible for starting the war, something that prompted Zelensky to assert that Trump was living in a Russian "disinformation space".

Trump's outburst was widely criticised, including by Australia, where opposition leader Peter Dutton said the US leader had "got it wrong".

"Australia should stand strong and proud with the people of Ukraine. It's a democracy and this is a fight for civilisation. Vladimir Putin is a murderous dictator and we shouldn't be giving him an inch," he told radio station 2GB.

"I think President Trump has got it wrong in relation to some of the public commentary that I've seen him make in relation to President Zelensky and the situation in the Ukraine."

However, officials in Moscow are revelling in the White House's foreign policy flip.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who remains a key ally of current leader Vladimir Putin, took to social media to praise Trump, who he claimed was "200 per cent right".

"If you'd told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud," he wrote.

In a post on the encrypted messaging service Telegram, Zelensky said he had a "good conversation" with Kellogg.

"Grateful to the United States for all the assistance and the bipartisan support for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people," he wrote.

Still, Kellogg's trip to Ukraine has been overshadowed by the rhetoric from the most senior US officials, including the President and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Both have floated the idea of Ukraine giving up territory to Russia as part of peace negotiations, as well as the prospect of denying Zelensky's bid for his nation to be admitted to NATO.

On Thursday, US Vice President JD Vance defended Trump's moves to get closer to the Kremlin.

"Well how are you going to end the war unless you're talking to Russia," he told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC.

"You've got to talk to everybody involved in the fighting if you actually want to bring the conflict to a close."

Monday will mark three years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

During his campaign last year, Trump repeatedly asserted he could end the conflict "in a day", although that's since been walked back significantly.

At a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago mansion earlier this week, the US President claimed even a "half-baked negotiator" could have ended the war years ago.

While the US has floated multiple concessions that could be offered to Russia in a bid to end the fighting, Putin and the Kremlin are yet to make public what it would offer in return.

Some within Trump's Republican Party have rebuked his criticisms of Zelensky and his overtures towards the Kremlin.

Senator John Kennedy, from Louisiana, said Putin was "a gangster".

"I trust this guy like I trust gas station sushi," he said.