Several senior administration officials, including President Donald Trump, have grown “frustrated” with Ukrainian officials’ critiques of their efforts to end the country’s war with Russia, a top administration official said.
The administration has begun a significant push to end the war over the last week. Several officials have traveled overseas to meet with Ukrainian and Russian leaders separately and NATO allies, while Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In recent days, Trump officials and Zelensky have traded criticisms, creating massive controversy in Washington and across Europe.
“There’s obviously a lot of frustration here,” Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, told Fox & Friends on Thursday. “For all the administration has done in his first term as well, and all the United States has done for Ukraine is just, it’s unacceptable.”
Since the president’s separate calls with Zelensky and Putin last week, Vice President JD Vance met with Zelensky in Munich, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with the Ukrainian leader in Kyiv, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attended the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting.
Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Russian leaders in Saudi Arabia earlier this week as well. Ukraine was not included in this meeting, which Ukrainian officials criticized.
The administration pitched Ukrainian leaders a plan to establish economic ties via the besieged country’s rare natural minerals, but the offer was not well received. The complete details of the plan were not revealed publicly, though initial reporting indicated that the U.S. sought $500 billion worth of rare earth minerals.
“Vice President Vance was very frustrated leaving the Munich Security Conference,” Waltz added. “Our secretary of treasury, who traveled all the way to Kyiv, is also frustrated, all on top of the president, obviously, who makes frustration well known, and that’s because we presented the Ukrainians really an incredible and historic opportunity to have the United States of America co-invest with Ukraine, invest in its economy, invested its natural resources, and really become a partner in Ukraine’s future in a way that’s sustainable.”
Trump, in expressing his frustration, called Zelensky a “dictator,” a reference to the fact that Ukraine has not and cannot hold elections while the country is under martial law, which the Ukrainian government declared shortly after Russia invaded in February 2022. He also claimed Ukraine was responsible for the war that Russia began.
The Ukrainian president accused Trump of living in a “disinformation space,” which fueled their current sparring.
“The idea that Zelensky is going to change the president’s mind by badmouthing him in public media,” Vance told the Daily Mail. “Everyone who knows the president will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Waltz referenced Vance’s remarks and said, “Bad mouthing in the press, for all the administration has done in his first term as well, and all the United States has done for Ukraine is just, it’s unacceptable. They need to tone it down and take a hard look and sign that deal.”
Trump’s Russia-Ukraine envoy, Gen. Keith Kellogg, is in Ukraine and he, too, met with Zelensky.