Breaking down the heated exchange between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance at the White House.
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy argued over compromising with Russia during a White House meeting.
“You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out,” a furious Trump told Zelenskyy as a meeting that was meant to ease tensions over the sudden US outreach to Russia ended up inflaming them.
“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War Three, and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to this country,” Trump said.
Zelenskyy was at the White House to sign a deal on sharing Ukraine’s mineral riches and discuss a peace deal with Russia, despite the US President recently branding his Ukrainian counterpart a dictator.
The meeting came after a week-long diplomatic dance that has seen the leaders of France and Britain come to the White House to persuade Trump not to abandon Kyiv.
But tempers frayed after Vice-President JD Vance said “diplomacy” was needed to end the war. Zelenskyy asked “what kind of diplomacy” and Vance then accused him of being “disrespectful” in the President’s office.
US Vice-President JD Vance (right) called Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (left) "disrespectful" as they met, along with US President Donald Trump, in the Oval Office. Photo / AFP
‘Tough deal’
Trump then backed up his Vice-President as the leaders argued about whether the US had failed to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and the situation became increasingly tense.
Trump had alarmed US allies and upended Washington’s longstanding Ukraine policy two weeks ago when he spoke to Putin and started talks on ending the three-year-old war – without Kyiv’s involvement.
Trump told reporters on Friday he had since spoken on “numerous occasions” to Putin.
The US leader has demanded a deal granting Washington preferential access to Ukraine’s rare-earth and other natural resources as the price for any continued backing – even though he has refused to commit to giving Kyiv security guarantees as part of a truce with Russia.
“We’ll be dig, dig, digging” for Ukraine’s resources, Trump said on Thursday ahead of the meeting – echoing his presidential election campaign slogan about how the United States would “drill, baby, drill” for oil.
WATCH: Full Heated Exchange between President Trump, Vice President Vance and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. pic.twitter.com/oMJUGPqbSU
The clash came despite Trump recently softening his tone on Zelenskyy in recent days, after berating him last week as a “dictator without elections”, blaming Ukraine for Russia’s February 2022 invasion and echoing a series of Kremlin talking points about the war.
“I have a lot of respect for him,” Trump said of Zelenskyy on Thursday at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “We’re going to get along really well.”
Trump, a billionaire real estate tycoon, insists the minerals deal is necessary for Washington to recoup the billions of dollars it has given Ukraine in military and other aid.
Zelenskyy said ahead of his arrival in Washington that US and Ukrainian officials would determine the nature of security guarantees for Ukraine and the exact sums of money at stake in the accord, he said.
But Trump, who said this week he trusts Putin to “keep his word” on any ceasefire and has repeatedly expressed admiration for the authoritarian Russian leader in the past, has refused to commit on security.
Britain and France have offered peacekeepers in the event of a deal to end the Ukraine war but say there must be a US “backstop” – including American intelligence and possibly air power.
Putin and Trump said after their February 12 phone call that they had agreed to meet personally but they have not finalised any meeting yet.
But as tensions between Moscow and Washington eased, Russia’s assault on Ukraine continued.
Russian infantry were on Friday storming the Ukrainian border from the Russian region of Kursk, near areas of the region that were seized last summer by Ukrainian forces, Kyiv said Friday.
