Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office on 28 February could not possibly have gone worse. He had arrived in Washington hoping for a public show of support from the US president – the leader of Ukraine’s most important Western partner – or at least to paper over the cracks in their increasingly contentious relationship. During the preceding days, Zelensky had endured a volley of insults and threats from his US counterpart, who called him a “dictator” and pressured him to “move fast” to sign a deal handing over a stake in Ukraine’s mineral rights to the United States, “or he is not going to have a country left”.
But from the moment Trump greeted Zelensky outside the White House, it was clear that he was intent on humiliating the Ukrainian leader. “He’s all dressed up today,” Trump quipped, pointing to his black shirt, trousers, and combat boots. (Zelensky has worn military-style clothing since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022 because his country is at war.) From there, the situation quickly deteriorated.
Sitting alongside Trump in front of the assembled cameras in the Oval Office, Zelensky was attempting to lay out some of the conflict’s history and how Vladimir Putin had violated ceasefire agreements in 2014 and 2015, when the US vice-president JD Vance launched what looked very much like a pre-planned attack. “I think it’s disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media,” Vance complained, ignoring the fact that it was the White House that had invited the press corps to observe the meeting and ensure that it was televised. “You should be thanking the president.”
Zelensky asked Vance, who has previously declared that he does not “care one way or the other” what happens to Ukraine, whether he had ever been there, and urged him to “come once”. The vice-president accused Zelensky of staging “a propaganda tour” for visiting officials and doubled down on his attack. “Do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America, and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?” Vance demanded. A White House pool reporter heard one Trump aide whisper to another, “This is going to be big.”
Then, Zelensky attempted to push back, telling the Americans that they had a “nice ocean and don’t feel now” the effects of Putin’s aggression, “but you will feel it in the future”. At which point Trump interrupted. “You don’t know that,” Trump told Zelensky. “You are in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel.” The two leaders started talking over each other, with a visibly agitated Trump pointing his finger at Zelensky. “You’re not in a good position, you don’t have the cards right now. With us you start having cards,” Trump said.
“I’m not playing cards,” Zelensky responded. “I’m very serious, Mr President. I’m the president in war.”
“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people,” Trump shot back, now raising his voice. “You’re gambling with World War Three, and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country that’s backed you far more than a lot of people say they should.” Vance joined the attack, asking Zelensky whether he had “said thank you once in this entire meeting”. “A lot of times,” he replied. When the camera panned over to the Ukrainian ambassador to Washington, Oksana Markarova, she was sitting with her head in her hands. “I think we’ve seen enough,” Trump said as the cameras were ushered out. “That’s going to be great television.”
The signing ceremony that had been scheduled for Zelensky and Trump to conclude what the latter had called a “very big deal” on Ukraine’s mineral rights was cancelled, as was the press conference the two leaders had been expected to hold. According to Fox News, the US secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz told the Ukrainian delegation that Zelensky needed to leave the White House grounds.
“It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelensky is not ready for peace if America is involved,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social shortly afterwards. “He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for peace.”
The response from Moscow was ecstatic. Russian state media hosts could not contain their glee over what one of the hosts of Rossiya 24 called a “public flagellation for Zelensky”, which “no one expected from the US president”. Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and deputy chairman of the country’s national security council, applauded Trump on X. “The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office,” he wrote of Zelensky. “DonaldTrump is right: The Kiev regime is ‘gambling with WWIII’.”
There is no doubt that Zelensky could have handled the situation more diplomatically. He took Vance’s bait, talked over Trump, and allowed his, perfectly understandable, frustration to get the better of him. Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina and close ally of Trump told reporters outside the White House that Zelensky must apologise and admit that he “screwed up big time”, concluding that, “Zelensky is going to have to fundamentally change or go.” When asked that evening during an interview on Fox News whether he owed Trump an apology, Zelensky reiterated his gratitude to the US president and his citizens for their past support, but insisted that, “I think… we have to be very open and very honest… and I’m not sure that we did something bad.” He did later acknowledge that the encounter was “not good for both sides”.
Regardless of Zelensky’s own role in the debacle, it is now glaringly clear that Ukraine, and Europe, can no longer count on the US to come to their defence. For all the apparent bonhomie of this week’s meetings between Trump and Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer – with the latter’s theatrical flourish of a personal invitation from King Charles III flaunted as an “unprecedented” and “historic” honour – it could just as easily have been either leader being subjected to a dressing down by Trump and his fawning vice-president. European leaders and US allies around the world should be under no illusions about the cruel and capricious nature of Trump’s administration and its willingness to turn on the country’s strategic partners, at their moment of greatest need, for a puerile display of chest-beating and a few minutes of “great television”. Flattering Trump and stroking his ego is not a sustainable strategy for European security.
There will presumably be more calls for Zelensky to step down. Trump has taken up Putin’s mantra that Ukraine must hold elections (currently suspended because the country is at war and under martial law, much as in the UK throughout the Second World War, as Starmer has recently noted) in a barely concealed attempt by the Russian leader to get rid of the Ukrainian president in the hope that his democratically elected government will be replaced by a more Moscow-friendly regime. Starmer, Macron, the incoming German chancellor Friedrich Merz, and every other allied leader who cares about defending liberal democracy, must rally to Zelensky’s defence, and make urgent preparations to support Ukraine without the US. Keeping their heads down and hoping to placate him will not work. To paraphrase the famous remark often attributed, probably inaccurately, to Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776: they must all hang together, or most assuredly they shall all hang separately.
[See also: Was Keir Starmer’s Trump meeting really a triumph?]
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