More Trump shouts at Zelensky: "If Putin wants it, he'll destroy you."
Last Friday's meeting at the White House between the two presidents was very tense, with the tycoon assuming Putin's position.
LondonWithout television cameras as witnesses this time, but the last Friday's meeting at the White House between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky ended, more or less, like the one in February, with the US president shouting and "cursing constantly." This was stated on Monday by the Financial Times, from sources familiar with the meeting's ins and outs, in which Trump urged Zelensky to accept Russia's conditions for ending the war, warning him that Putin had told him he would "destroy" Ukraine if he didn't agree. In February, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance publicly humiliated Zelensky, chiding him for his alleged lack of gratitude toward the United States and ultimately inviting him to leave at the end of what Trump called a "good television".
The meeting on Friday, to which Zelensky arrived with the intention of convincing Trump that he sold Tomahawk missiles to continue putting pressure on the Kremlin, had been scheduled after a few weeks in which the tycoon seemed to have changed his mind about the conflict and the fate of Ukraine. He had even commented on the very poor prospects for the Russian economy, and the carnage that the war was causing weekly among the ranks of the Kremlin military. But, crucially, the meeting with the Ukrainian president also took place twenty-four hours after Trump and Putin spoke on the phone and scheduled a new summit, in Budapest, for the next two weeksOnce again, the Republican changed his mind, according to the British newspaper.
"I've never been."
According to the sources mentioned in the Financial Times, the US president released maps of the front lines in Ukraine, insisted that Zelensky must cede the entire Donbas region to Putin, and repeatedly repeated the arguments the Russian leader had used in the aforementioned call the day before. One of the European insiders familiar with the White House discussions claims that Trump told Zelensky that Putin had explained to him that the conflict was a "special operation, not even a war," adding that the Ukrainian leader must make a deal or face destruction. "If [Putin] wants it, he'll destroy you."
"I don't even know where this red line is. I've never been there," Trump reportedly said, referring to the maps of the front lines in Ukraine, according to the official's account. Neither the White House nor the Ukrainian president's office immediately responded to requests for comment. Zelensky also made no reference to the matter in his latest daily statement, published on social media on Sunday evening, in which he stated only that "decisive steps are needed from the United States, Europe, and the G-20 and G-7 countries" to end the war. But on Monday, he admitted that the White House discussion was "frank" and suggested that Washington was making a mistake by accepting Hungary, Putin's closest European ally, as the host country for the meeting with the Russian president.
For his part, Trump told Fox News on Sunday that he was confident of ending the conflict, adding that Putin "will take something; he has gained some territory." Reports of the phone call between Trump and Putin indicate that Putin made a new proposal to Trump on Thursday, according to which Ukraine would cede the parts of the eastern Donbas region it still controls in exchange for small areas of the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia. But ceding the rest of Donbas that is still under Ukrainian control is unthinkable for Ukraine, as it would hand over to Moscow a territory that it has only partially occupied for more than a decade and has not been able to conquer since Putin ordered the invasion in 2022.
If the information Financial Times is correct, Zelensky's European allies will have suffered this Monday a new dose of reality about the lack of reliability of Donald Trump and the complicity of the Republican with Putin, whom he already publicly rehabilitated at the Alaska summit. Contrary to the statements of the US president, who had assured during the election campaign that he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, the prospect of peace is receding, on the verge of a new winter of war.
