According to a report from Politico, four senior members of U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s Administration have held “secret discussions” recently with some of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top political opponents, as Washington attempts to see if it can hold a quick presidential election to oust Zelensky from power in Kyiv.

Some of the politicians spoken to by U.S. Officials are reported to be Yulia Tymoshenko, the former Prime Minister of Ukraine, as well as senior members of the European Solidarity party, which is led by Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko.

Aides to President Trump appear to be confident that Zelensky would lose any election due to “war fatigue and public frustration over rampant corruption” despite Zelensky still polling between 45-55% in most polls, well above both Tymoshenko and Poroshenko.

All of this appears to stem from several weeks now of disinformation claims made by U.S. President Trump and other members of his administration, including Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, about Ukraine and President Zelensky, which culminated in last week’s heated-argument in the Oval Office between Trump, Zelensky and U.S. Vice-President JD Vance. These include President Trump calling Zelensky a “dictator without elections” as well as Gabbard and Elon Musk both falsely claiming that Zelensky had “canceled the elections” despite the Ukrainian Constitution forbidding any election to occur while the country is still under martial law as a result of the Russian invasion.

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