Trump Jr. Blames Zelensky For ‘Murder’ Of US Journalist Gonzalo Lira

Donald Trump Jr. has blamed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky for the death of journalist and filmmaker Gonzalo Lira.

Gonzalo Lira, a national of the US and Chile, died while in jail in Ukraine. He passed away on January 11. His family reported his death the following day.

In a post on X Donald Trump Jr. wrote: “So we are now allowing our foreign welfare recipients, such as Zelinski [Zelensky], to kill our citizens and our journalists?”

He also slammed the likely lack of response to the news in the US media. “I would have waited for the outrage of our media, but I know that it will not happen,” he said.

RT reports: Lira had been in pre-trial detention in Ukraine’s Kharkov since May 2023 on accusations of justifying Moscow’s military operation against Kiev.

According to a handwritten note by Lira addressed to his sister and published by the Grayzone news website, the journalist had severe health problems caused by pneumonia and a collapsed lung, which began in mid-October.

Ukrainian prison authorities only acknowledged the issue on December 22 and stated he would undergo surgery, Lira wrote.

Following the journalist’s death, his father, Gonzalo Lira Sr., said that his son had been “tortured” while the US Embassy in Kiev “did nothing” to help him.

“The responsibility of this tragedy is the dictator Zelensky with the concurrence of a senile American President, Joe Biden,” Gonzalo’s father wrote in a note published by the Grayzone.

After Russia and Ukraine’s long-simmering disputes turned to military confrontation in February 2022, Lira, who moved to Ukraine and married a local woman in 2010, began actively covering the fighting on social media. He insisted that the conflict had been provoked by the Zelensky government and its Western backers, saying that Ukraine had no chance of winning against Russia and predicted failure.

He also criticized efforts by the Western media to portray Ukraine as a “democracy,” speaking about rampant corruption in the government and publishing a list of Zelensky’s opponents who, he claimed, had been “disappeared” by local authorities.