There can be no dispute over what happened in the White House Oval Office on 28 February 2025, given the unedited television coverage and the uncensored full transcript of the proceedings. But the events can be interpreted differently when seen from different perspectives. According to prevailing Republican thinking, a ‘disrespectful’ President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in his trademark black sweatshirt, adorned with the Ukrainian trident (tryzub), rather than in a suit as the dignity of the event apparently demanded. He then showed his ingratitude towards his American hosts by refusing to thank them for their generosity towards Ukraine. An alternative view was that a courageous and unsuspecting Zelenskyy walked into an ambush and was quite unprepared for the hostilities that were to follow. It didn’t help that his command of English was somewhat limited and that his defiant attitude was guaranteed to inflame Donald Trump.
To start with, and under the circumstances, the conversation was reasonably amicable. But when Zelenskyy became critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he incurred the wrath of President Trump. At this point, Vice President JD Vance interjected, informing Zelenskyy that it was disrespectful of him “to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American public.” The Ukrainian was deemed ungrateful to Trump, who, unlike his immediate predecessor, was trying his best to end the conflict through diplomatic efforts rather than through a show of military strength. Trump went on to accuse Zelenskyy for “gambling with World War III”, while Vance was critical of Zelenskyy for having gone “to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October.”
The American President even sympathised with Putin for having endured a Democrat-initiated “phony witch hunt” and mentioned his bête noire Hunter Biden in the process. Trump summed up his opinions by telling Zelenskyy “I don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States. And your people are very brave. But you’re either going to make a deal or we’re out.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was among those who praised Trump for his contributions at the meeting.
The White House meeting, a public display of raw and unfiltered emotions, was unwisely held in the open in front of the press corps rather than behind closed doors. It ended ingloriously as Zelenskyy left the premises at 1:42 PM, after 139 minutes, without a formal send-off and also missing the lunch that was being prepared in the West Wing. The signing of a rare minerals deal, due to take place in the East Room upstairs, followed by the customary news conference, did not happen. Under the proposed agreement, 50% of the output from Ukraine’s state-owned strategic mineral resources, yet to exploited, would eventually be sent to a fund jointly owned by Ukraine and the US, partly as repayment for America’s contributions to the Ukrainian war effort.
President Zelenskyy thereupon crossed the Atlantic, where he attended a European leaders’ defence summit on Ukraine on 2 March, hosted by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at Lancaster House in London, before being conveyed by helicopter later in the day to Sandringham in Norfolk to meet King Charles III. Following the summit, Starmer announced an unspecified “coalition of the willing” in support of Ukraine.
The events in the White House are widely being interpreted as part of an ongoing re-setting of the post-Second World War international order. The US is no longer committed to shouldering the burden of collective European security, and is reaching out to Russia in place of its EU allies. On 24 February, the US thus voted with Russia in the UN General Assembly and later in the UN Security Council- in resolutions marking the third anniversary the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The US also opposes NATO membership for Ukraine and has indicated that it will abandon Ukraine if a deal cannot be reached.
Since the disastrous White House press conference, President Zelenskyy has made conciliatory noises, repeatedly thanked America, although refusing to apologise to Trump as requested, and indicated his willingness to return to the US and continue talks with Trump and to secure the originally planned rare minerals deal. He has also offered to step down in exchange for NATO membership for Ukraine. Diplomacy must ultimately prevail, and a bipartite Russia-Ukraine agreement, unlikely though it might seem, provides the only meaningful way forward. Resumption of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, as in Belarus in March 2022, is highly desirable. Deals imposed by external third parties that do not simultaneously involve both parties to the conflict cannot be guaranteed to succeed.
Ashis Banerjee