President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance engaged in a stunning argument with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday.
The meeting underlined the personality clash afflicting Trump’s relationship with his Ukrainian counterpart. Where Zelensky is arrogant and incapable of offering charismatic gratitude, Trump is ignorant of Ukrainian concerns and Russia’s dominant impact on them.
The meeting was astonishing. Proceedings descended into near chaos when Vance jumped in to criticize Zelensky as being “disrespectful.” The vice president challenged Zelensky for not once having said “thank you” for continued U.S. military aid during the meeting. He also noted, correctly, that Zelensky had acted as a de facto campaign surrogate for the Biden-Harris campaign last fall. Trump then became angry as Zelensky sought to rebuke his claim that the Atlantic Ocean protected America from most Russian threats. Trump added, “You don’t have the cards. You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III.” Zelensky responded that the war isn’t a “game.”
Both men are to blame for this embarrassment, one that will surely see Russian President Vladimir Putin toasting his Kremlin allies.
Zelensky must bear significant blame for his foolish arrogance. He refused to show gratitude to Trump, to offer more calibrated ripostes to Trump’s lectures, and to placate the president’s not-insignificant ego. Whatever his wartime courage as a leader, the Ukrainian president has been repeatedly criticized by many governments for failing to appreciate the financial and other costs associated with their support to Ukraine. A former British defense secretary and ardent Ukraine supporter once referred to these frustrations by stating, “I’m not Amazon.” These criticisms reflect the fact that democratic nations need to justify sending Ukraine financial and military aid to their electorates. When Zelensky shows the arrogant expectation of aid without commensurate gratitude, it poses political difficulties for these governments.
In a sense, then, even if he shares Winston Churchill’s courage, Zelensky shares none of Churchill’s sense for always identifying the most important person in the room. Churchill’s ego was significant, and his World War Two strategic interest was always centered on countering Nazi Germany. However, following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill delivered a masterful speech to Congress. Full of humor and grace, his outreach was designed to ensure America’s total support for the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. It worked. In contrast, Zelensky has publicly condemned some of Ukraine’s closest allies as being Russian puppets when he has had disagreements with them. Zelensky also should obviously have apologized in advance for his campaigning with former Vice President Kamala Harris. He could have said, “I did so because I believed it was the best way to save my country. But I was wrong, and I apologize.” But he didn’t.
The problem with Zelensky’s arrogance is that it is a poor diplomatic companion for Trump’s ignorance. And it is beyond doubt that the president does not understand the fundamental causes of the war in Ukraine or Putin’s strategic agenda. Trump has offered a false history of the war that blames Ukraine for its start and for its continuation. Trump also appears to believe that he must beg Putin for concessions while being able to demand them from Ukraine. This is both immoral and foolish. In seeking to woo Putin with words full of praise and U.N. votes in Russian favor, Trump misreads the Russian leader’s functional nature.
As the Washington Examiner wrote on Thursday, Putin “was taught in a very different school of diplomacy. Trump is a businessman who values personal relationships and the exchange of symbolic favors to grease great deals. But Putin is a former KGB officer, a former lieutenant colonel for the feared Soviet intelligence service, trained to understand that great deals are forged by hard-headed unilateral interest and manipulation. He cares as much for symbolic favors as he cares for his political opponents.”
It would be one thing if Trump were leveraging pressure against Putin in the same way he is with Zelensky. And maybe he soon will. But right now, all the pressure is heading in one direction. It appears to reflect Trump’s belief that Zelensky, rather than Putin, is the key obstacle to a just peace deal. That is not true. Just look at what the Russians are demanding as part of any peace deal: no concessions for Moscow, but total concessions without security guarantees for Kyiv.
On that point, there was a little-noticed moment on Friday when Trump expressed frustration with the push by Zelensky, the United Kingdom, and France to ensure security guarantees are part of any peace deal. What Trump fails to realize is that security guarantees of the kind offered by the U.K. and France through peacekeeping forces are the absolute instrumental component of any viable deal. The U.K. and France cannot and will not deploy those troops unless they have an American security backstop. It is strange that Trump doesn’t realize this. After all, how can Trump expect very close allies to risk their own people to preserve his agreement if he is unwilling to preserve those same people if Russia breaks any agreement? And without peacekeeping troops, Ukraine will not agree to a deal.
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Trump concluded his meeting by stating that “attitudes need to change” if a peace agreement is to be possible. That’s true. But both Zelensky and Trump need to look in the mirror.
Or contemplate that bust of Churchill sitting with them in the Oval Office.