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Zelensky Tells Trump: Please Stop Saying Ukraine Is Corrupt

The Ukraine president says he’s told Trump that it’s not helpful to repeatedly accuse his government of corruption.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has hit out at President Trump’s repeated accusations that his country is plagued by corruption. In an interview with Time magazine, Zelensky—whose July phone call with Trump is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry—pushed back on Trump’s recent claims about corruption in Ukraine. He called Trump’s claims “the hardest of signals” that has a huge effect on his country, and added: “It’s very important for the United States, with all they can do for us, for them really to understand that we are a different country, that we are different people. It’s not that those things don’t exist. They do. All branches of government were corrupted over many years, and we are working to clean that up.” The Ukrainian president went on to say: “During my meeting with [Trump], I said that I don’t want our country to have this image. For that, all he has to do is come and have a look at what’s happening, how we live, what kinds of people we are.”