Fair or Not, Zelensky Is Angering Trump. Is His Style Hurting Ukraine?
The New York Times
Through three years of wartime leadership, Ukraine’s president has mostly played weak hands wisely. But his approach has fallen flat with the Trump administration.
When the secretary of the treasury, Scott Bessent, traveled to Kyiv this month, he wanted President Volodymyr Zelensky to sign an agreement ceding mineral rights to the United States, delivering a quick win for the Trump administration.
But Mr. Zelensky had an ask of his own: a meeting with President Trump, to finalize a deal he hoped would ensure continued 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 crucible of three years of wartime leadership, Mr. Zelensky has mostly played weak hands wisely, like when he popped out of a bunker while his capital was bombed early in the war to film selfie videos rallying his nation and the world to resist. His showmanship also paid off in talks that kept billions of dollars worth of weapons and ammunition coming to his military.
But his approach to the Trump administration has fallen flat with the White House, engendering not empathy but hostility from the American president. His request for a presidential meeting flopped, becoming the latest example of a dramatic personal style that was once integral to his nation’s struggle but now looks more like a monkey wrench in dealing with the Trump administration.
It is hotly debated in Ukraine whether Mr. Zelensky erred in his messaging by responding to insults from Mr. Trump with a few snipes of his own, rather than diplomatically navigating the U.S. president’s attacks. Though Mr. Trump’s claim that Ukraine started the war with Russia was clearly false, Mr. Zelensky infuriated him by publicly correcting the record and claiming the American president was trapped in a “web of disinformation” peddled by the Kremlin.
Was his response a necessary defense of national interests? Or a misstep in dealing with an empowered leader who broaches no criticism and essentially holds Ukraine’s fate in his hands?
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