When the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, went to Kyiv this month, he wanted President Volodymyr Zelensky to sign a mineral rights to the United States, providing a quick victory for Trump administration.
But Mr. Zelensky had a request from himself: a meeting with President Trump, to finalize an agreement which he hoped to ensure continuous American support. “I hope that in the near future,” he said, “the document will be ready, and we can sign it during a meeting with President Trump.”
Through the three -year crucible of leadership in wartime, Mr. Zelensky especially played weak hands, as when he came out of a bunker while his capital was bombed at the start of the war to film Selfie videos joining her nation and the world to resist. His staging also paid talks that have maintained billions of dollars in weapons and ammunition from his soldiers.
But his approach to the Trump administration fell flat with the White House, will not generate empathy but but the hostility of the American president. His request for a presidential meeting has collapsed, becoming the last example of a dramatic personal style which was once an integral part of the struggle of his nation, but is now more like a monkey key to treat the Trump administration.
He is strongly debated in Ukraine if Mr. Zelensky made an error in his message by responding to Mr. Trump’s insults with a few snipes, rather than navigating diplomatically in the attacks of the American president. Although Mr. Trump’s assertion that Ukraine began war with Russia was clearly false, Mr. Zelensky made him furious by publicly correcting the file and claiming that the American president was trapped In a “disinformation network” stuck by the Kremlin.
Was his response a necessary defense of national interests? Or a misstep in the treatment of an autonomous leader who makes no criticism and essentially holds the fate of Ukraine in his hands?
“If you are a statesman, you should first think of your country and not your ego,” said Kostiantyn Yelisieev, former diplomat and architect of the game book used by the former Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, For relations with Mr. Trump.
This approach was characterized by offers of commercial enterprises to American companies and responding to the criticism of Mr. Trump with regard to Ukraine with dry dry articles on a website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“It is not a good idea to criticize the chief of the nation, and in particular the head of a nation that does the best to help you,” said Mr. Yeliseiev.
Many Ukrainians have applauded Mr. Zelensky for defending Trump, even if personal enmity has become an obstacle. Zelensky said on Sunday that he would resign as president if it would bring peace to Ukraine, although he is not clear if he seriously envisaged this option.
Mr. Zelensky received advice from alarmed European leaders to avoid climbing, including during a telephone call last week with the president of Poland, Andrzej Duda.
“I suggested to President Zelensky to remain attached during calm and constructive cooperation with President Donald Trump,” said Duda on X after the call. Among the American leader, he said: “I have no doubt that President Trump is guided by a profound sense of responsibility for world stability and peace.”
Mr. Zelensky’s style has already hired. During visits to Western capitals to stimulate more aid for Ukraine, he gave leaders to the point of embarrassment. The British Secretary of Defense, Ben Wallace, replied at a time that “like that or not, people want to see a little gratitude”. And the Ukrainian president frustrated the American military leaders by ignoring their advice on the strategy of the battlefield.
Now, with the future of American military aid and support in all potential peace talks on the line, he threatens to pose a much more important problem.
Over the past two weeks, Mr. Zelensky refused to sign the mineral agreement and said he would not accept any results from Mr. Trump’s negotiations if Ukraine was not represented. He also continued his diplomatic efforts to consolidate European support.
But even the donors in Ukraine in this diplomatic strategy say that Mr. Zelensky’s staging is a problem.
Rather than presenting the position of Ukraine once, Mr. Zelensky reiterated at a security conference in Munich, a press conference in the Turkish capital and two press conferences in kyiv that he would reject the negotiations of Mr. Trump if they exclude Ukraine.
The constant public insistence on Ukrainian participation has irritated Mr. Trump. “He has been at meetings for three years, and nothing has been done,” said Mr. Trump Friday, at Fox News Radio. “So, I don’t think it’s very important to be at meetings, to be honest with you.”
But the American leader often uses threats and tactics with strong arms as a way to get things done – and Trump could ultimately be well seeing Mr. Zelensky involved in the process.
On Sunday, rather than composing his rhetoric as some European leaders had advised, Mr. Zelensky did not move away from his previous comment that Mr. Trump is surrounded by Russian “disinformation” on war.
He highlighted Mr. Trump’s efforts to inflate the amount of help Washington gave to Ukraine. And Mr. Zelensky focused on the affirmation of depreciation of Mr. Trump according to which the Ukrainian leader has only an approval note of 4% – demystifying the complaint in what criticisms say to be a war of reckless words.
It is not the first meeting of Ukraine with Mr. Trump. During Mr. Trump’s first term, Ukraine offered agreements to buy Pennsylvania coal and locomotives, giving it a public relations victory to create jobs in an important electoral swing state. The Ukrainian authorities also discreetly closed an investigation into payments under the table in Ukraine in Paul Manafort, who had been president of Trump’s 2016 campaign. Manafort was then found guilty of financial crimes in the United States and was pardoned by Mr. Trump.
This approach by the first mandate of Mr. Trump saw Ukraine obtaining permission to buy anti -tank javelin missiles – the first deadly military assistance granted to the country – and the imposition of sanctions on the natural gas pipelines of North flow in Russia.
In Ukraine today, many say that they want a voice in talks that will shape their future – and that Mr. Zelensky’s request is not only the sign of a stubborn character but of a largely approved position in the country. There is little appetite to allow the Trump’s negotiation team to exchange the army’s achievements in the fight against Russia to a quasi -stop after three years of war – without commitment from kyiv.
“The Ukrainians want peace more than anyone, but our struggle and the resistance of the Ukrainian army are the only reason why we still exist as a nation, and as the subject of international relations,” said Lieutenant Pavlo Velychko, which fights in northeast of Ukraine. “It was not Zelensky who decided what he wanted to want or not to want, but all the Ukrainians who got up to fight.”
