Ukraine’s president had been hoping to leave the White House on Friday after positive talks with Donald Trump, capped with the signing of a minerals deal giving the US a real stake in his country’s future, if not an outright security guarantee.
Instead Volodymyr Zelensky faced an extraordinary dressing down in front of the world’s media, after President Trump and his Vice-President JD Vance demanded that he show more gratitude for years of US support.
The Ukrainian president pushed back at suggestions from his more powerful partners that he should work harder to agree a ceasefire with Vladimir Putin. They responded that he was being “disrespectful”.
Zelensky was eventually told to leave the White House early before he and Trump could even take the stage for a scheduled news conference.
And the minerals deal, which had been trailed and praised by both sides this week, was left unsigned. “Come back when you’re ready for peace,” Trump wrote on social media shortly before Zelensky’s car pulled away.
There were several major flashpoints in the meeting. Here are four of the most fiery – and the politics and feeling that lies behind them.
Advertisement
1) Tempers flare between Zelensky and Vance
While there was half an hour of cordial talks and formalities at the start, tensions began to boil over in the Oval Office when Vance said the “path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy”.
“That’s what President Trump is doing,” he said.
Zelensky interjected, referencing Russia’s aggression in the years before its full-scale invasion three years ago including a failed ceasefire in 2019. “Nobody stopped him,” he said of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“What kind of diplomacy, JD, are you talking about? What do you mean?” he said.
The exchange then became visibly tense, with Vance replying: “the kind that will end the destruction of your country.”
The vice-president then accused Zelensky of being disrespectful and “litigating” the situation in front of the American media.
It was Vance’s defence of Trump’s approach to ending the war – by opening communications with Putin and pushing for a quick ceasefire – that first escalated tensions with the Ukrainian leader.
2) ‘Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel’
After Vance challenged the Ukrainian president over problems he’s had with the military and conscription, Zelensky replied: “During the war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have a nice ocean and don’t feel [it] now, but you will feel it in the future.”
That comment rankled Trump and drew him into the clash that up until this point had been limited to Zelensky and the vice-president.
Here was the Ukrainian leader suggesting Trump had failed to grasp the moral hazard of dealing with the war’s aggressor.
Zelensky’s message cut to the heart of what critics say is Trump’s fundamental miscalculation in dealing with Russia. That by ending Moscow’s isolation and seeking a quick ceasefire he risks emboldening Putin, weakening Europe and leaving Ukraine open to being devoured.
