- During an extremely tense White House meeting, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance pushed Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky to accept their efforts at diplomacy to end the war. Zelensky told them that diplomacy with Russian President Vladimir Putin was not possible.
President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky engaged in heated international diplomacy of the highest level in front of the television cameras on Friday during an extraordinary Oval Office meeting.
The three leaders had what can only be described as an argument in full view of the press, giving the public a glimpse of the sort of conversations that ordinarily happen behind closed doors. For a brief stretch Trump raised his voice to the point of shouting, accusing Zelensky of lacking the leverage to negotiate a peace treaty with Russia that would satisfy Ukrainians.
“You don’t have the cards right now,” Trump said, gesticulating as his voice rose.
Zelensky replied: “I’m not playing cards.”
The meeting would also lead to a breakdown of the U.S. and Ukraine's relationship. In a statement released after the meeting, Trump said Zelensky was "not ready for peace if America is involved because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations." The president deemed that an unacceptable proposition. "I don't want advantage, I want peace," Trump wrote in a social media post.
Heated Oval Office Exchange@VP Vance to Zelenskyy: "Mr. President, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office, litigating in front of the American media."
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 28, 2025
President Trump: "You're not in good position right now...You're gambling with World War III." pic.twitter.com/kuM1xb0yrt
The meeting between Trump, Vance, and Zelensky came as the Ukrainian president visited Washington, D.C., to sign a mineral rights deal the two countries spent the week negotiating. However, once the conversation turned to the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, differing perspectives came into full view. On one side Trump and Vance expressed their frustration at Zelensky for what they perceived as his lack of willingness to negotiate a ceasefire and subsequent peace deal. In response, Zelensky pressed the two American officials, Vance in particular, for being, in his view, too credulous about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions should an end to the war be negotiated.
The tensions began when the discussion turned to the question of whether the U.S. had become overly aligned with Russia during the early peace talks over the past several weeks. After Trump claimed working closely with Russia was a necessity for a deal to happen, Vance interjected. The vice president criticized former President Joe Biden for offering chest thumping press conferences that yielded few results in the peace process, while praising Trump for engaging in diplomacy.
Zelensky then listed a litany of grievances against Russia, including its violation of a 2019 ceasefire overseen by France and Germany, and occupation of Crimea in 2014, as evidence that Putin would not respond to diplomacy. “What kind of diplomacy you are speaking about JD,” Zelensky asked. “What you mean?”
At this point the meeting entered another register, with Trump becoming particularly animated. With his tone sharpening and his voice deepening, Trump accused Zelensky of risking a broader global conflict if the war were to continue.
“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people,” Trump said. “You’re gambling with world war three.”
Both Trump and Vance, who was especially pointed in this regard, labeled Zelensky as ungrateful for American efforts to supply Ukraine with aid during the war and the role it was currently playing in the peace process. For Trump, Ukraine’s main leverage in negotiations was its allyship with the U.S., without which it would have been overwhelmed by Russia. “You’re not winning this,” Trump told Zelensky. “You have a damned good chance of coming out OK because of us.”
Trump and Zelensky already had a tense relationship. The president has regularly criticized Zelensky for continuing the war, which he sees as a hopeless endeavor. As Trump pushes for an end to the war, that relationship has only worsened to the point that it burst into public view on Friday.
Earlier this month the U.S. and Russia held preliminary talks about possibly ending the war during a summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Those talks didn’t include any representatives from Ukraine or elsewhere in Europe. The U.S. then turned its attention to discussions with Ukraine. Those conversations reportedly included a proposal that would give the U.S. $500 billion from Ukraine’s mineral mines and a demand that American aid be repaid at a 100% interest rate. Zelesnky turned down that proposal on the grounds that it would amount to “selling” his country.
