LONDON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hit back at President Donald Trump’s call for the country to hold fresh presidential elections following Tuesday’s historic Russia-U.S. talks in Saudi Arabia.

The U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh — to which Ukraine was not invited — represented “an important step forward” toward ending Russia’s three-year-old invasion of its neighbor, according to a State Department readout.

Hours after the talks concluded, Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that Zelenskyy’s public approval rating was “down to 4%,” failing to provide a source for the figure. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also repeatedly framed Zelenskyy as illegitimate, citing the postponement of the country’s 2024 presidential elections due to martial law.

During a Wednesday press conference in Kyiv, Zelenskyy challenged Trump’s claim, pointing to respected recent surveys showing him polling consistently above 50% with voters and describing Trump’s assertion as Russian “disinformation.”

“If someone wants to replace me right now, then right now won’t work,” Zelenskyy said. “If we are talking about 4% then we have seen this disinformation, we understand that it comes from Russia. And we have evidence.”

The president said he would conduct opinion polls for trust ratings for world leaders, including Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Zelensky said he took Trump’s comments “calmly” and that Ukraine would help get the president out of information “isolation”.

Hours after the U.S.-Russia discussions concluded with a commitment to continue talks, Russia launched a major missile and drone barrage into Ukraine. Ukraine’s air force reported 167 drones and two Iskander ballistic missiles launched into the country, with 106 intercepted and 56 more lost in flight.

Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov reported a “massive enemy strike on a densely populated area of ​​the city” causing electricity, heating and water outages.

Zelenskyy said in a post to social media that the strike targeted “civilian energy facilities,” in keeping with longstanding Russian doctrine. “For nearly three years now, the Russian army has relentlessly used missiles and attack drones against them,” he said.

“Just yesterday, after the notorious meeting in Riyadh, it became clear that Russian representatives were once again lying, claiming they do not target Ukraine’s energy sector,” Zelenskyy continued.

“Yet, almost simultaneously, they launched another attack, with drones striking electrical transformers,” he wrote. “And this is during winter — it was minus 6 degrees Celsius at night.”

“We must never forget that Russia is ruled by pathological liars — they cannot be trusted and must be pressured,” the president said.

Kyiv’s exclusion from the Saudi talks have badly unsettled Ukraine and its European allies. Trump was unapologetic when speaking with reporters Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, just as Odesa came under attack.

“They’ve had a seat for three years and a long time before that,” Trump said of Ukraine, suggesting Kyiv could have made a deal with Moscow to avoid the huge loss of lives and land.

Trump said he believes he has “the power to end this war,” while falsely claiming Ukraine started the conflict against Russia. The war began when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, a campaign that followed eight years of cross-border Russian aggression in Crimea and Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

“I think it’s going very well,” Trump said of U.S. efforts to end the war. “But today I heard, oh, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it three years — you should have never started it.”

Speaking on Wednesday, Zelenskyy criticized the Trump administration’s recent demand for a treaty that would hand over 50% of Ukraine’s natural resources to the U.S., in exchange for no security guarantees. Trump himself has repeatedly said he wants $500 billion worth of Ukraine’s rare minerals to pay back the U.S. for its support during Russia’s invasion.

Zelenskyy said such a demand was “not serious”, and corrected Trump’s claim that the U.S. has provided more money than Europe.

“There wasn’t a word there about security guarantees,” he said. “There is nothing precise there. I can’t sell the state.”

Zelenskyy said that if Ukraine cannot join NATO, it needs a strong army backed by Western weapons and air defense. He said Ukraine was looking for a troop contingent from European countries to help protect Ukraine after a ceasefire, but warned that Ukraine’s own troops needed to be backed by air defense, which only the U.S. can provide.

“Only the Americans, President Donald Trump, have this protection, this air defense, it’s exclusively from them, and that’s what’s important,” Zelenskyy said. “We have a map that shows us this, but we are ready for dialogue, for discussion, about what quantity, how much is needed. We’ve calculated everything; we’ve figured it all out. So this is essentially the main point of what we are requesting.”

Zelenskyy suggested on Tuesday that the U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh merely revived ultimatums issued by Moscow in the early stages of its invasion.

“I have the impression that there are now some negotiations happening and they have the same mood, but between Russia and the United States,” Zelenskyy said during a visit to Turkey.

“Again, about Ukraine without Ukraine,” he added. “It’s interesting, if Ukraine didn’t yield to ultimatums in the most difficult moment, where does the feeling come from that Ukraine will agree to this now?”

“I never intended to yield to Russia’s ultimatums and I don’t intend to now,” Zelenskyy added.

In Riyadh, the U.S. and Russia agreed to appoint as-yet unnamed special representatives to continue peace talks, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Addressing the Russian parliament on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — who led Moscow’s team in Riyadh — told lawmakers that “the atmosphere is positive, the intentions are correct, we will see how the situation develops further, what decisions will be made.”

He added, “The main thing is to meet, listen and hear, make decisions that will be realistic.”

Putin aide Yuri Ushakov told the state-controlled Channel One television channel that Trump’s Ukraine-Russia envoy — Keith Kellogg — would negotiate a settlement with Kyiv and European nations.

Kellogg arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday morning, where he is expected to hold talks with Ukrainian leaders.

Kellogg told reporters his “mission is to sit and listen” and then report back to Trump. He parried questions about whether Trump is siding with Putin, saying that Trump wants to end the war because “he understands the human suffering” it is causing.

Kellogg added that he agrees with Trump that the war would never have begun if he had been president at the time.

ABC News’ Fidel Pavlenko, Oleksiy Pshemyskiy and Will Gretsky contributed to this report.

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