Remember when Donald Trump was "angry" with Putin and, in a gesture of revenge, decided to offer unconditional support to Zelensky—and, consequently, to Ukraine? Well, Trump has thrown a tantrum again: in a new flare-up of his emotional bipolarity, he now appears to be leaning toward Putin's side, defending several of his points in the so-called "peace agreement."
During Friday's White House meeting, Donald Trump asked Volodymyr Zelensky to accept the terms of a peace agreement imposed by Vladimir Putin and issued a warning: if Kiev doesn't, Russia will "destroy" Ukraine, the Financial Times reports.
According to the newspaper, the meeting between the two most senior figures in Ukraine and the US repeatedly devolved into "shouting matches," with Trump "cursing the entire time," according to European sources familiar with the meeting in Washington.
The US president discarded maps of the front lines in Ukraine, insisted that Zelensky hand over the entire Donbass region to Putin, and repeatedly repeated the points Putin had expressed concern about during the phone call between the leaders of the two superpowers.
While Zelensky managed to get Trump to once again support freezing the current front lines, the meeting summary points to what the Financial Times describes as "the capricious nature of Trump's position" on the conflict and his willingness to support Putin's maximalist demands.
The Ukrainian delegation went to Washington hoping to return with guarantees of delivery of the long-range Tomahawk missiles, but they left the White House empty-handed and with the feeling that the US president had adopted many of Putin's points, even those that contradicted Trump's own past statements about Russia's recent weaknesses.
European sources claim that Trump told Zelensky that Ukraine was losing the war and warned him: "If [Putin] wants to, he will destroy you."
At one point during the meeting, the US president tossed aside maps of the Ukrainian battlefield.
The White House and the Ukrainian president's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Financial Times.
On Thursday, the eve of Zelensky's visit to the White House, Putin made a new proposal to Trump, stating that Ukraine would hand over parts of the eastern Donbass region to Moscow in exchange for small areas in the two southern frontline regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
This belligerent repetition of Putin's rhetoric by the president of the main NATO member dashed the hopes of many of Ukraine's European allies that the US would increase aid to Kyiv.
Three European officials briefed on the White House discussions confirmed that Trump spent much of the meeting lecturing Zelensky, repeating Putin's arguments about the conflict and urging the Ukrainian president to accept the Russian proposal.
"Zelensky was very negative" after the meeting, one of the Financial Times' sources said, adding that European leaders were also "not optimistic, but pragmatic in planning their next steps."
On Sunday, Zelensky said that "decisive measures are needed from the United States, Europe, the G20 and G7 countries" to end the war.
Source Reuters
0 Comments