WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump cut short a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday and said the Ukrainian leader is “not ready” for peace with Russia in an extraordinary meltdown in the Oval Office that threw question marks over chances for a truce.
Zelensky was meant to be making a full White House visit to sign a US-Ukrainian deal for joint exploitation of Ukraine´s mineral resources, as part of a post-war recovery in a US-brokered peace deal.
Instead, an ugly clash blew up almost immediately in the Oval Office where Trump and Vice President JD Vance shouted at Zelensky, accusing him of not being thankful for US help in the three-year war against Russian invasion.
Trump berated Zelensky, telling him to be more “thankful” and that without US assistance Ukraine would have been conquered by Russia. “You´re either going to make a deal or we´re out,” Trump added. “And if we´re out, you´ll fight it out and I don´t think it´s going to be pretty.”
Zelensky left in his motorcade shortly after, without holding a planned joint press conference. The resources deal was left unsigned, the White House said Trump took to his Truth Social platform to castigate Zelensky saying “he disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office.”
Zelensky is “not ready for Peace,” Trump wrote. “He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”
The extraordinary meltdown came after Trump said Ukraine will have to make “compromises” in a truce with Russia, which has occupied swaths of Ukraine, destroying entire cities and towns along the way. “You can´t do any deals without compromises. So certainly he´s going to have to make some compromises, but hopefully they won´t be as big as some people think,” Trump said.
But showing Trump pictures of war atrocities and referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Zelensky said there should be “no compromises with a killer on our territory.” “Crazy Russians,” he said, deported Ukrainian children and committed war crimes during their three-year invasion of his country.
The dramatic public breakdown in the long-tense relationship between Zelensky and Trump came after their meeting -- in front of a large group of journalists -- had appeared to get off to a friendlier start.
Zelensky had said, “I think President Trump is on our side.” US President Donald Trump told President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday that Ukraine will have to make “compromises” in a truce with Moscow, while Zelensky insisted that there should be no concessions with Russia´s “killer” leader.