President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D Vance‘s meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy turned tense after the group began discussing the United States’ support for Ukraine amid attempts to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
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During Zelenskyy’s high-stakes visit to the White House on Friday, Feb. 28 — his first since Trump and Vance took office in January — the U.S. planned to sign a natural resources agreement with Ukraine and make progress on negotiating a peace deal.
“We’re going to sign the agreement at the conference in the East Room a little while, right after lunch,” Trump told reporters inside the Oval Office. “It’s somewhat of an exciting moment, but the really exciting moment is…when they stop the shooting, and we end up with the deal. And I think we’re fairly close to getting that.”
The meeting then quickly turned into a confrontation, with Trump and Vance berating the Ukrainian president as Vance accused him of being “disrespectful” for trying to litigate U.S.-Ukraine policy in front of American journalists.
“Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems,” Vance told Zelenskyy during the tense conversation. “You should be thanking the president for trying to bring you into this conference.”
Zelenskyy then accused Vance of never having been in combat or having been to Ukraine, telling the vice president that he wasn’t going to tell Ukrainians “what we’re going to feel.”
“We’re trying to solve a problem,” Zelenskyy said. “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel, because you’re in no position to dictate that.”