Sawt Falasteen - Putin hails US-Russia talks as Zelensky-Trump spat deepens

The Russian leader also claimed his troops had crossed into Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region -- a first ground attack there since 2022 -- but Kyiv swiftly denied the claim.

Moscow has been buoyed by Tuesday's talks in Saudi Arabia and a stunning press conference from US President Trump in which he criticised Zelensky, repeated several Kremlin narratives about the conflict and called for a rapid end to the three-year war.

Putin said he rated the bilateral talks in Saudi Arabia "highly", describing them as a "first step" to restoring relations with Washington.

"In my opinion, we made the first step to restore work in various areas of mutual interests," he told journalists while visiting a drone manufacturing plant in his native Saint Petersburg.

Kyiv was not invited to the Riyadh talks as Moscow and Washington moved to sideline both Ukraine and Europe.

Russia, which for years has railed against the US military presence in Europe, wants a reorganisation of the continent's entire security framework as part of any deal to end the Ukraine fighting.

Putin on Wednesday said that Russia and the US needed to "trust" each other if talks were to be successful.

"It is impossible to solve many issues, including the Ukrainian crisis, without increasing the level of trust between Russia and the United States," he said.

- 'Disinformation space' -

Trump's overtures to Moscow have upended US foreign policy and triggered widespread alarm in Kyiv and across Europe.

Weeks of tensions between Zelensky and Trump over the new president's position on the war have burst to the fore over the last 24 hours.

The Ukrainian leader on Wednesday accused Trump of succumbing to Russian "disinformation" after the US president had echoed many of Russia's claims on the conflict, including blaming Kyiv for having "started" the fighting and suggesting Zelensky was clinging to power.

"Unfortunately, President Trump, for whom we have great respect as leader of the American people... lives in this disinformation space," Zelensky said in a press conference in Kyiv.

"I believe that the United States helped Putin to break out of years of isolation," the Ukrainian leader added, in some of his sharpest criticism yet of the new US administration.

Russia has revelled in Trump's remarks.

Putin on Wednesday said that the United States' allies "only have themselves to blame for what's happening", suggesting they were paying the price for opposing Trump's return to the White House.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised him as the "only Western leader" who understood that "dragging Ukraine into NATO" was a cause of the conflict.

Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg -- who was not involved in the Saudi talks -- arrived in the Ukrainian capital on Wednesday morning in what he said was a mission to "sit and listen" to Kyiv's concerns.

Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said that it was vital Kellogg "receives full information about what is happening at the front" to take back to Washington.

- Ukraine election -

In his press conference on Tuesday, Trump suggested that one such concession would be to hold new elections in Ukraine, one of Moscow's demands for a peace deal.

"It's been a long time since we've had an election," said Trump. "That's not a Russian thing, that's something coming from me, from other countries."

Zelensky was elected in 2019 for a five-year term, but has remained leader under martial law imposed following the Russian invasion.

Trump also claimed the Ukrainian leader's approval rating was "at four percent".

Zelensky's popularity has eroded since the start of the war, but the percentage of Ukrainians who trust him has never dipped below 50 percent since the invasion, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).

A telephone poll of 1,000 people by the institute released on Wednesday found that 57 percent of respondents trusted Zelensky, while 37 percent said they did not and the rest were undecided.

Both sides are trying to improve their situation on the battlefield amid Trump's push for a ceasefire.

Kyiv on Wednesday rejected claims by Putin that his troops had "crossed into" Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region.

"The Russians are trying to spread additional fake news, in particular about some breakthroughs in the Ukrainian defence in the Kursk region and a massive invasion of Ukraine. This is not true," Dmytro Lykhoviy, spokesman for Ukraine's general staff, said on social media.

V.AbuAwwad--SF-PST