U.S. President Donald Trump slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday for suggesting that the end of Russia’s war against Ukraine likely “is still very, very far away.”
The comments come as prominent Trump allies escalate pressure on Zelenskyy to dramatically change his approach to the U.S. president, who has made quickly ending the war a top priority, or step aside.
The long, complicated relationship between the leaders has reached a nadir following a disastrous White House meeting in which Trump and U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance excoriated Zelenskyy for not being sufficiently thankful for U.S. support since Russia’s invasion three years ago.
“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform, about the comments Zelenskyy made late yesterday while speaking to reporters in London.
Trump later on Monday said Zelenskyy “better not be right” about the end of the war still being far off.
“If somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long,” Trump said at the White House. “That person will not be listened to very long.”
Zelenskyy, meanwhile, was tight-lipped about a European initiative to end the war.
“We are talking about the first steps today,” he told a reporter. “Until they are on paper, I would not like to talk about them in great detail.”
“An agreement to end the war is still very, very far away, and no one has started all these steps yet,” he added.
Zelenskyy also said, on social media, that it “is very important that we try to make our diplomacy really substantive to end this war the soonest possible.”
Trump’s national security adviser said Zelenskyy’s behaviour during the Oval Office meeting leaves it “up in the air” whether he’s someone the U.S. administration will be able to deal with going forward.
With fears of a widening Ukraine-U.S. rift after Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskky’s hostile treatment at the White House, Ukrainians are increasingly pinning their hopes on Europe to help them end the war with Russia and secure a livable peace.
“Is he ready, personally, politically, to move his country towards an end to the fighting?” Mike Waltz said on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom. “Can he and will he make the compromises necessary?”
Angela Stent, a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council, said Putin is likely in no rush to end the war amid the fissures between Trump and Zelenskyy, and between Europe and the U.S.
“He is not interested in ending the war,” said Stent, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “He thinks Russia is winning…. And he thinks that as time goes on, the West will be more fractured.”
Britain, France trying to help
European countries, led by Britain and France, are rallying around Zelenskyy and trying to hatch a peace plan that includes Kyiv.
Britain said on Monday that several proposals had been made for a truce, after France floated a plan for a one-month pause leading to peace talks.
A truce would show the West whether Russian President Vladimir Putin was “acting in good faith,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday “And that’s when real peace negotiations could start.”
Hosting a meeting of world leaders in London, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for a coalition of willing nations to support Ukraine’s defence against Russia. Starmer said Europe must do the heavy lifting but would need U.S. support.
France, Britain and potentially other European countries have offered to send troops to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire — something Moscow has already rejected — but say they would want support from the U.S., or a “backstop.”
European ground troops would only be deployed to Ukraine in a second phase, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview published in Le Figaro late on Sunday.
Zelenskyy says a ceasefire must carry explicit security guarantees from the West to ensure that Russia, which now holds nearly 20 per cent of Ukraine’s land, does not attack again. Trump has refused to give any such guarantees.
Friedrich Merz, the conservative due to become Germany’s chancellor after winning the largest share of the vote in an election a week ago, suggested Friday’s Oval Office argument, in which Zelenskyy was pressed to commit publicly to a diplomatic solution, had been a pre-planned trap.
“It was not a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelenskyy, but obviously a manufactured escalation,” Merz said.
“We must now show that we are in a position to act independently in Europe.”
Chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton speaks with Ukraine’s former Minister of Economic Development, Tymofiy Mylovanov, about the Trump-Zelenskyy clash in the Oval Office and what it means for the relationship between the two countries moving forward.
