Zelensky fails the art of statecraft in catastrophic fashion
President Trump and Vice President Vance were left without a choice. The unhinged Ukrainian president stepped out of line and fumbled an easy opportunity.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky set off a global firestorm Friday during his meeting at the White House, once more displaying to the entire world that he is a geopolitical novice who is entirely incapable of conducting statecraft for his country's benefit. No matter how you spin it, Zelensky left Washington, D.C., having inflicted significant additional damage to Ukraine’s standing under his stewardship.
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Given that this is the number one topic worldwide today, much writing and video commentary has already been dedicated to the now-infamous 50-minute public meeting between Zelensky and President Trump, who was joined by Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others.
First, I urge you to watch the video yourself, which I’ve attached below. The more fiery content starts at around the 40-minute mark, but I recommend you take the time to watch the whole thing to fully digest what happened.
To analyze this spat honestly and remove potential biases, we must first list the objectives of the Ukrainian and American delegations.
For the American side, this is much more straightforward. President Trump has made it clear that he wants the Russia-Ukraine war to end as soon as possible, and he understands there is little appetite for more U.S. taxpayer funds being allocated to Ukraine. Unlike Ukraine, the Trump Administration views Russia as an adversary but not an enemy nation. Moscow is a well-stocked nuclear power, and the president is not interested in unnecessarily ratcheting up the chaos level with a nuclear power. Several policymakers in the administration have indicated a preference to peel Russia off from its close relationship with China. While the White House acknowledges Ukraine as a European ally, they do not consider Ukraine a top tier partner, given the lack of historic ties with Ukraine, the country’s minor standing in the world, its history of corruption, and the massively lopsided relationship in which the U.S. acts as a patron and gets little in return for its “investment.” The White House has a sober analysis of Moscow’s military might, and it simply does not at all buy the globalist internationalist World War II analogies consisting of Putin’s armies becoming capable of marching their way through Europe. For the Trump Administration, the war in Ukraine is a devastating tragedy. Indeed, a significant chunk of the fault lies with Russia, but the White House has *zero* interest in promulgating this conflict.
On the other hand, Ukraine under Zelensky comes at it from a very different perspective. For Kyiv, Moscow is their mortal enemy, a massive shift in perception from the many years in which the neighbors had a more neutral relationship. Zelensky acknowledges that he is outgunned and outmanned in battle but absolutely refuses to give up on the prospect of outside military and financial aid (and ultimately, foreign manpower) coming to the indefinite rescue of his forces. Zelensky has spent the past two-plus years appealing to benefactors (mainly in the United States) about the importance of the war effort as if it is a make-or-break for the whole of the West. While his appeals are met with rambunctious applause within the confines of the Davos circuit, he has failed to convince the Trump Administration of his framework.
Despite their differences, the Trump Administration provided Zelensky with a golden opportunity to secure a mineral deal that would benefit both Ukraine and the United States. For Americans, the White House can advertise the agreement as a lend-lease-like program, allowing the U.S. to finally receive something material for expending so much financial and political capital toward defending an outmatched Ukraine. For Ukraine, the mineral deal significantly bolsters security guarantees, given that there would be a robust American commercial presence on Russia’s doorstep. It would also help Ukraine boost relations with a skeptical patron that increasingly views Kyiv as ungrateful, despite the U.S. being solely responsible for propping up the whole of its sovereignty.
Nonetheless, Zelensky came into the White House as a man possessed, seemingly purposefully trying to sow unnecessary conflict with President Trump and Vice President Vance.
His poor attitude and consistent squabbling were all the more shocking given what occurred in September, when Zelensky visited the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania, in what many interpreted as an outside endorsement of the Kamala Harris campaign. On his trip, Zelensky was accompanied by PA Gov Josh Shapiro, a prominent Democrat and Harris supporter, and other Democratic officials, including Sen Bob Casey. Notably, no Republicans were invited to the event. Zelensky infamously arrived on a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft, which further upset then-candidate Trump’s team and his supporters. The trip coincided with the release of a New Yorker interview where Zelensky criticized now-President Trump and VP Vance, calling Vance “too radical” and questioning Trump’s ability to end the war in Ukraine.
Instead of smoothing things over on Friday, Zelensky doubled and tripled down on his Biden-era, Davos-class-friendly talking points, which came off like nails on a chalkboard to America’s POTUS and VP. After forty minutes of interruptions, public disagreements in front of the press, and unnecessary challenges, Zelensky's arrogance and disrespect were just too much to handle. The president and vice president were already very publicly (and reportedly privately) skeptical of Zelensky’s leadership, and they were not going to let the man from Kyiv’s moral grandstanding go unanswered, so they rightly put him in his place.
All Volodymyr Zelensky had to do was play nice and be respectful *to the leaders of his most crucial ally*, and he would have come back to Kyiv in much better shape. Instead, his hubris and ego detonated what should have been a win-win for relations between the United States and Ukraine. Zelensky fumbled the meeting so much that some have suggested he must have come to the White House with deliberate plans to blow up the mineral deal. No matter how you spin it, Zelensky catastrophically failed to secure the national interests of Ukraine, and he will discover that no amount of virtue-signaling X posts thanking European globalists for their support will make up for the weight of the military and political backing of the United States of America.
Seems clear Z came to DC to sabotage a deal that he does not want. The US should turn this debacle over to Europe. The EU has a GDP of $20T - they can continue funding the death and desctruction if they wish to. They should also triple their defense budgets if they really feel Russia is a threat to them. Enough.
Zelynskyy is a fraud and a punk. 🤡