President Donald Trump criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky‘s actions during its three-year battle against Russia amid talks with a Russian delegation to end the conflict.

“I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well. 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,” Trump said during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”

The president referenced Zelensky’s disapproval of a U.S. delegation negotiating with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia this week to begin winding down the war.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff, and national security adviser Mike Waltz met with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov.

The two groups agreed to start the process of ending the battle and establishing diplomatic ties between the United States and Russia after years of an antagonistic relationship.

Notably, neither Zelensky nor any European leader was included in the discussions, raising concerns that they were being sidelined. Zelensky postponed his trip to Saudi Arabia, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday.

The current battle that Trump is seeking to end began when Putin invaded Ukraine and seized parts of the Donbas region, sparking the U.S. and European allies to pump billions of dollars into saving Ukraine and to slap Russia with sanctions to hurt its economy.

Trump also criticized Zelensky over Ukraine’s lack of elections, which Russia is pushing for as part of a peace agreement, and his approval ratings.

“We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating,” Trump said. “And where a country has been blown to smithereens, you got, most of the cities are laying on their sides. The buildings are collapsed.”

Zelensky’s approval rating hit upward of 90% as he rallied a national defense to Russia’s invasion early in the war, but his support back home has slumped to under 50% this year as the war hits the third year and tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The Trump administration last week said it wasn’t realistic for Ukraine to achieve its ultimate goal of NATO membership, a statement that aligns with Russia’s position. Trump pointed to Zelensky’s lack of accounting for the money that has been poured into Ukraine.

“I believe President Zelensky said last week that he doesn’t know where half of the money is that we gave him,” Trump said. “We gave them, I believe, $350 billion, but let’s say it’s something less than that. But it’s a lot, and we have to equalize with Europe because Europe has given us … a very much smaller percentage of that.”