Ukraine’s roller coaster relationship with the Trump administration entered a new downward spiral on February 28 when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s White House visit ended abruptly after a televised meeting escalated into a very public spat with US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Trump and Zelenskyy had been due to sign off on a landmark minerals partnership agreement that was intended to strengthen ties between Kyiv and Washington, DC, but the two leaders instead became embroiled in an increasingly angry exchange in front of the cameras over the terms of a potential peace deal with Russia. The Ukrainian delegation left the White House with the document still unsigned, leaving the future direction of bilateral relations in question.
The shocking scenes in the Oval Office rapidly went viral, sparking considerable international unease. The sense of disquiet was strongest in Europe, with numerous officials and commentators across the continent concluding that the rift confirmed their worst fears over Trump’s shifting foreign policy priorities and his commitment to European security.
In Ukraine, millions watched video footage of the White House argument in disbelief. Ukrainians were hoping the meeting would mark a welcome change in tone following weeks of mounting tensions that had seen their president branded a “dictator” by Trump and excluded from talks between the United States and Russia. Instead, they were faced with what appeared to be a complete breakdown in communication with their country’s most important ally and main supplier of critical military assistance.
Many Ukrainians were angered and dismayed by what they saw as Trump and Vance’s confrontational stance toward Zelenskyy. At various points in the heated exchange, the two US leaders appeared to question Ukraine’s war effort and suggest the country was in no position to be making demands, while also accusing Zelenskyy of being insufficiently grateful for US support.
Strikingly, neither man voiced any criticism of Russian ruler Vladimir Putin for launching the largest European invasion since World War II. On the contrary, Trump indicated that he did not welcome Zelenskyy’s hostility toward the Kremlin dictator. “You see the hatred he’s got for Putin,” Trump told the assembled press during the Zelenskyy meeting. “It’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate. He’s got tremendous hatred. And I understand that. But I can tell you the other side’s not exactly in love with him either.”
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As news of the disastrous Oval Office meeting spread across Ukraine, there was a clear effort to demonstrate a united front and rally around the flag. This response was hardly surprising. After all, Ukrainians have been fighting for national survival ever since Russia’s attack began eleven years ago with the seizure of Crimea and the invasion of eastern Ukraine. Since 2014, they have become familiar with the significant challenges their country faces as Ukrainian officials seek to maintain support in Washington and other Western capitals.
Zelenskyy’s main political rival Petro Poroshenko led the way, vowing to refrain from any criticism and saying that Ukraine needed to respond to events in the US by demonstrating unity. Other politicians followed suit. “Under no circumstances should we agree to calls for the president to resign, and I’m saying that as an opposition Member of Parliament. That defies the very idea of democracy,” said Inna Sovsun.
Many Ukrainians expressed their pride in Zelenskyy for what they saw as his refusal to be intimidated and his insistence on pressing the issue of security guarantees. “If we are for real, we haven’t spoken with such dignity since writing to the sultan,” commented Ukrainian political activist Anastasiya Paraskevova, referencing a celebrated but likely apocryphal series of seventeenth century letters sent by the Ukrainian Cossacks to the Ottoman Sultan and immortalized in a painting by Ilya Repin. “This is the sentiment right now. Trump has actually made Zelenskyy even more popular in Ukraine.”
There were also widespread suggestions that the White House had deliberately provoked a confrontation in order to discredit Zelenskyy and undermine US support for Ukraine. “Zelenskyy could have just sat there in silence for 40 minutes without saying a word. The problem is, they would have found a reason to get offended and start a brawl anyway,” argued Ukrainian journalist and commentator Ilia Ponomorenko. “You simply can’t win with people who don’t actually want a standard, successful meeting.”
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While the overall mood in Ukraine was one of defiance, Zelenskyy’s handling of the Oval Office clash also came in for significant criticism. Ukrainian Member of Parliament Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of the opposition European Solidarity Party, called the meeting “catastrophic for Ukraine” and noted that the only winner was Putin. Commenting on Zelenskyy’s role in Friday’s confrontation, Goncharenko told CNN that the Ukrainian leader needed to be “much more diplomatic” and “constructive” in his future dealings with the country’s US partners. “Mr. Trump will be president of the United States for the next four years. We need to work with him, not argue with him,” Goncharenko commented.
A common complaint among Ukrainians was that while they are being asked by the Trump administration to make concession after concession, Russia faces no such pressure. The tone of the White House meeting certainly seemed to underline Ukraine’s limited leverage as it attempts to secure the backing of the United States for a sustainable peace settlement that can prevent further Russian aggression. “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out, and if we’re out, you’ll fight it out,” Trump told Zelenskyy at one point as tempers frayed.
Mariia Zolkina of Ukraine’s Democratic Initiatives Foundation think tank commented to the BBC that the war of words in Washington would add to a growing sense of injustice within Ukrainian society over the Trump administration’s strategy for ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. She accused the US leader of seeking to grant Putin almost all of the objectives he has sought but failed to achieve on the battlefield during three years of full-scale war, and warned that this one-sided approach would only strengthen Ukraine’s will to resist. “Trump does not understand that millions of Ukrainians are united by a shared sense of zero tolerance toward injustice. This is what led to the revolutions of 2004 and 2014,” she noted, referencing independent Ukraine’s two pro-democracy revolutions.
While most Ukrainians were clearly shaken by the spectacle of their president arguing so publicly with Trump and Vance, the sense of shock was not shared by everyone. Some viewed the Oval Office clash as yet another reality check in a long and painful national journey that has seen Ukraine navigate more than a decade of Russian aggression while adjusting to the limitations of international assistance. “Zelenskyy was brave, but we are supplicants now,” wrote Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov in Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “Trump and the Kremlin have made it abundantly clear that Ukraine’s participation in these negotiations between the US and Russia is not necessary or desirable.”
Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.
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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.
The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.
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Image: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talks with US President Donald Trump (R) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 28 February 2025. Zelensky is in Washington to sign the framework of a deal, pushed by President Trump, to share Ukraine’s mineral wealth with the US. (Photo by EPA/POOL/ABACAPRESS.COM)