KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainians reacted with a mix of shock, anger and unease after Friday’s diplomatic row at the White House, with both President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Trump coming in for criticism over a clash that could have a very direct impact on the country’s future.
Some said that — no matter who was right or wrong — in the sharp televised exchanges and the collapse of an economic development and minerals deal that was supposed to be the centerpiece of the visit, the Ukrainian president had done his country a disservice with his feisty approach to the new American leadership.
“This is a diplomatic catastrophe for Ukraine and there will be consequences for our armed forces, and for Ukraine in general,” said foreign policy expert and former adviser to the Ukrainian Minister of Defense Alexander Khara, speaking from Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
As the world knows by now, the Oval Office session, which also included sharp exchanges between Mr. Zelenskyy and Vice President J.D. Vance devolved into a shouting match, with the participants trying to talk over one another. Mr. Zelenskyy left the White House on his own shortly thereafter, having signed no deals and secured none of the security guarantees from Washington that Kyiv is desperate to get.
Yet even as politicians and analysts try to make sense of what happened and brace themselves for the inevitable fallout, many Ukrainians are incensed by Friday’s events, and the perceived bullying of their head of state by his U.S. counterparts on live television.
“Zelenskyy yesterday was faced with the new reality of American idiocracy with Trump,” Ukrainian voice actor Bohdan-Hordiy Beniuk said bluntly in a series of messages on Telegram. “I’m very grateful to all people of the U.S. and I know that people still care about Ukraine. But the new administration… I wish courage and patience to all Americans.”
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Opposition MP and frequent Zelenskyy critic Oleksiy Goncharenko described the Oval Office meeting as “simply horrible,” but said Mr. Zelenskyy bore much of the blame for having behaved in an undiplomatic manner.
“In fact, we have seen the end of our relationship with Trump right now,” Mr. Goncharenko wrote on Facebook on Friday. “It was an absolute idiocy to start quarreling with the U.S. president in front of the cameras. It can be done and probably should be done, but not in front of cameras.”
Some were parsing the meeting like a soccer match, trying to decode the two sides’ strategies and analyzing which player had performed well or badly.
Some, like Mr. Khara, accused Mr. Vance — widely seen here as an even bigger skeptic of U.S. military and financial aid to Ukraine than even Mr. Trump — of being particularly “provocative” during the meeting, a feeling also echoed by Steven Moore, former Republican chief of staff in Congress and founder of the NGO “Ukraine Freedom Project.”
“Vance set up a trap and Zelensky walked right into it,” Mr. Moore said, adding that the spectacle could have been avoided had Mr. Zelenskyy used a professional translator and been more deferential to Mr. Trump, as European leaders such as France’s President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had been in their more placid meeting last week with Mr. Trump.
“All [Mr. Zelenskyy] had to do was go in and flatter the president, flatter the vice president, say ‘thank you’ 500 times,” Mr. Moore said. “He should not have argued with the president and the vice president in the White House, on television. It was ill-advised.”
Yet many analysts suggested that such a clash was predictable — if not inevitable. Mr. Trump in recent week, had already signaled a distinct shift in American policy toward Russia in the three-year war, and the Ukrainian leader had a tough case to make for his war-weary country.
“Even if Zelenskyy had behaved differently and kissed Mr. Trump’s ring, it would not have ruled out a crisis in our bilateral relations further down the road,” said Mr. Khara. The former diplomat believes that Ukrainian security demands and the position of the current U.S. administration are fundamentally irreconcilable.
“I believe that the Russians and Americans have already agreed on the general algorithm of how to approach Ukraine, and it is as a result of this agreement that the U.S. introduced their resolutions to the United Nations,” he said. Washington and Moscow are jointly seeking to blame Ukraine for not being “willing to find a compromise,” and have already worked out the general contours of a future agreement for a reset and restoration of diplomatic relations – as well as easing the sanctions targeting its economy.
For Ukraine however, “there is no positive thing at all. It’s no NATO, it’s no restoration of 1991 borders,” said Mr. Khara.
Mr. Zelenskyy himself was receiving a much warmer reception and a loud ovation on a trip to meet with European and other allied government heads in London Sunday. Many said Europe’s powers would have to step up given the prospect that American aid and diplomatic support for Ukraine could be dramatically scaled back.
“On Friday in the Oval Office, President Zelenskyy pointed out in so many words that Vladimir Putin is a liar and a criminal and cannot be trusted to keep his word in any way, shape or form, because he has demonstrated time and time again that he will break any agreements,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at the London meeting, which included a meeting between Mr. Zelenskyy and King Charles III.
“I stand with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and I stand with the people of Ukraine,” Mr. Trudeau added.
Building tensions
Veteran political analyst Voldymyr Fesenko agreed, saying all the events leading up the contentious meeting suggested a clash was coming.
“Unfortunately, this had been building up, and now the rupture has occurred — the UN resolution, the problems that started to arise in the negotiation process. This happened because U.S. policy toward Russia, Ukraine and the definition of the Russia-Ukraine war has changed, which became clear during the Oval Office confrontation,” Mr. Fesenko told RBC-Ukraine.
One consolation for Mr. Zelenskyy is that the pressure campaign from Washington has boosted his once-shaky standing at home. In the hours that followed the debacle at the White House, Ukraine’s leading politicians offered a rare and remarkable display of unity.
Former President Petro Poroshenko, who finished second to Mr. Zelenskyy in the last presidential election and is now a leader of the opposition, published a video on X in which he declined to criticize his political opponent.
“This is not what Ukraine needs right now,” said Mr. Poroshenko. “Ukraine needs unity.”
Popular former general and commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny, who is seen as a potential challenger to Mr. Zelenskyy in future elections, published a picture of himself shaking hands with the president on social media. “This war is a test of our resilience and courage, revealing both our strength and the loyalty of our true allies. The road ahead won’t be easy, but together, we will overcome every challenge,” read the caption.
Said Kyiv-based analyst James Rushton of Friday’s showdown, “In a very real way, it has consolidated support around Zelenskyy. [Ukrainians] saw someone that wasn’t going to be bullied. They saw someone that was clearly being ambushed by hostile journalists, by someone, talking about wearing a suit.”
Mr. Khara concurred.
“The political scientists and colleagues I talk to, we are on the same page, we’re behind our president. And I’m not only talking about those who voted for him, or have been supporting him for all these years, but also about those who were against him. Certainly we’re rallying around the flag.”
As Ukrainian officials and citizens adjust to the shock from Friday’s events, Mr. Zelenskyy and his advisers still seem to believe that the rift between Kyiv and Washington can be fixed.
When asked during an interview on Fox News Friday evening whether he thought his relationship with the Trump administration could be repaired, Mr. Zelenskyy answered “Yes, of course,” before repeatedly thanking the American people and the White House for their support.
But Oleksandr Merezhko, Ukrainian MP and chairman of the Committee on Foreign Policy and International Cooperation, warned that Ukraine and its president bear much of the responsibility for repairing the rift. He said in an interview with Radio Liberty that Ukraine had to “lower the temperature and talk to people who have influence over Trump.”
“We should not give up on President Trump,” said Mr. Merezhko. “We do not lose hope, and … God will help. Zelensky did not insult Trump, he defended Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine ground on even as the diplomatic battlefields were shifting. A Russian drone attack Sunday on the Ukrainian city of Kherson killed one person and wounded six, the Associated Press reported, citing city officials.
Russian forces sent 79 drones into Ukraine overnight into Sunday, Ukrainian officials said. Ukraine’s Air Force told the AP that 63 drones were destroyed during the overnight attacks, and a further 16 simulator drones were “lost,” likely having been electronically jammed.