Trump has been trying to strong-arm Ukraine for years, but it’s not getting any prettier
SAUL LOEB / AFP
(COMBO) US President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, February 28, 2025.
US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy got into an unusually heated exchange in the Oval Office on Friday, as Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukraine’s leader for being ungrateful and pressured him to make a deal with Russia, only to be met with a spirited response.
Trump told Zelenskyy, the president of a country that has been successfully withstanding an invasion by a nuclear superpower for just over three years, that without (wildly inflated) US assistance, Ukraine would have disappeared in about two weeks.
“Or three days, yes, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin said the exact same thing,” said Zelenskyy, concisely homing in on exactly the problem Ukraine faces when one of its larger defence and financial backers suddenly switches sides in the middle of a war.
Right now you are not in a very good position. You don't have the cards right now
Trump to Zelenskyy
Zelenskyy came to Washington on Friday with a lot of baggage, a large dose of humility, a spartan wardrobe, and hopes that Trump's apparent turn toward the Kremlin was a passing fad. He was sorely disabused of that when he sat down with Trump and his advisors in the Oval Office in front of news cameras.
"Right now you are not in a very good position. You don't have the cards right now," Trump told Zelenskyy, referring to Ukraine's challenges in rebuilding manpower and Russia's incremental territorial gains with devastating losses in southeastern Ukraine.
"You're gambling with World War III, and what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country," Trump told Zelenskyy, who kept trying to (and eventually did) get a word in.
Vance then leaned in to Zelenskyy.
"Have you said 'thank you' once? You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October," Vance told a visibly exasperated Zelenskyy, apparently referring to the Ukrainian leader's trip to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania in September 2024 that irked Republicans.
The entire Oval Office exchange, unprecedented as it is for White House protocols or diplomatic niceties otherwise, underscores the degree of the shift that has taken place in the Trump White House in a scant five weeks since he took office.
Trump has strong-armed Ukraine into agreeing to an extortionate, though chimerical, minerals deal (though that is now apparently dead); dangled economic concessions to Russia; called Zelenskyy a dictator (and then seemingly forgot he did so); and raised the prospect of the 2022 Istanbul peace talks-cum-unconditional surrender as a template for the elusive peace plan he promised.
The United States also voted with Russia and North Korea at the United Nations against Ukraine and its territorial integrity.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy leaves the White House after meeting with US President Donald Trump, in Washington, DC, February 28, 2025.
Zelenskyy "can come back when he is ready for Peace," Trump posted as the Ukrainian president left the White House ahead of schedule.
Zelenskyy is learning what the White House press corps learned as its members watched the Russian agency Tass waltz into the Oval Office in their stead: There is a new sheriff in town.
