Where did it all go wrong between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky? Just a week ago, Zelensky was speaking of his ‘respect’ and ‘friendship’ for Trump and of his hope that the new US administration would ‘stand by Ukraine … to make a just and lasting peace’. Yet in the course of just 24 hours, the Trump-Zelensky relationship spiralled into a nose-dive before definitively crashing and burning with a devastatingly vicious post by the US President on his Truth Social media platform.
In an incoherent and error-filled statement, Trump blasted Zelensky as ‘a dictator without elections’, a ‘modestly successful comedian’ who had ‘talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion dollars, to go into a war that couldn’t be won, that never had to start’. Trump accused Zelensky of ‘playing Biden like a fiddle’ in order to extract money – and, perhaps most outrageously of all, accused Zelensky of putting off peace talks with Putin because he ‘probably wants to keep the gravy train going’.
Trump’s savage attack on a close American ally has no precedent in the modern history
Trump’s ally Elon Musk was quick to pile in behind the President’s criticisms of Zelensky’s legitimacy. ‘Given that we are supposed to be defending democracy, there should be democracy,’ Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter, which he owns. ‘Zelensky cannot claim to represent the will of the people of Ukraine unless he restores freedom of the press and stops canceling elections!’
Trump’s savage attack on a close American ally has no precedent in the modern history of diplomacy and has drawn shock and disbelief from across the US political spectrum – as well as from Europe. ‘Trump’s characterisations of Zelensky and Ukraine are some of the most shameful remarks ever made by a US president,’ wrote John Bolton, Trump’s National Security Advisor from 2018 to 2019. ‘Our support of Ukraine has never been about charity, our way of life at home depends on our strength abroad.’
Trump’s 230-word-long post was unusually aggressive, intemperate and reckless even by his own extravagant standards. They were the words of a clearly angry man who has been personally offended. Trump’s vice president J.D. Vance confirmed that his boss’ outburst was a direct, personal response to Zelensky’s behaviour.
Over the past week, Zelensky has publicly expressed indignation that he had not been invited to US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia, announcing that he would be flying to Riyadh anyway – before scrapping that plan and declaring that Ukraine would not necessarily abide by any peace deal agreed between Trump and Putin in upcoming face-to-face talks. Zelensky also accused Trump of living in a ‘bubble of Russian disinformation’. That, while quite possibly true, was apparently the final straw.
‘The idea that [Zelensky] is going to litigate his disagreements with the President in the public square … This is not a good way to deal with President Trump,’ Vance told reporters. Zelensky had attacked ‘the only reason [his] country exists, publicly … And it’s disgraceful,’ said Vance. ‘And it’s not something that is going to move the President of the United States. In fact, it’s going to have the opposite effect.’
Vance’s diagnosis rings true. Trump has thrown years of US diplomacy and billions of dollars (though not the $350 billion he claimed) to the wind in a fit of personal pique. Zelensky had dared to challenge Trump over his plan to bring a swift end to the war by striking a direct deal with Putin, and, even more outrageously to Trump’s mind, suggested that Ukraine might refuse to comply. The result was diplomatic armageddon by social media.
Doubtless, many previous US presidents have been choleric and vengeful men (Richard Nixon springs to mind). But none before Trump has had the technological means to communicate his spontaneous thoughts, unmediated, to millions at the touch of a button – and change the balance of power in the world as a result.
For three years since Putin’s invasion, Zelensky has barely put a foot wrong in his international diplomacy. In a series of passionate speeches to the British and European parliaments, Congress, and other national assemblies at the beginning of the war, Zelensky’s moral clarity and personal example of bravery drew standing ovations. It inspired – and occasionally shamed – Western nations into sending massive and unprecedented military and other aid.
But managing Trump was always going to be Zelensky’s trickiest – as well as most consequential – personal challenge. The two leaders go back a long way. In the now infamous ‘quid pro quo’ phone call during the first months of Zelensky’s presidency in 2019, Trump seemed to demand dirt on Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian business activities in exchange for continued US military aid. Zelensky politely refused. That episode became the basis of Trump’s second impeachment in the closing days of his first term.
During the 2024 US presidential campaign, Zelensky made his preference for a Biden victory a little too obvious, ill-advisedly touring arms factories in Pennsylvania to demonstrate that support for Ukraine was good business for America’s military-industrial complex. Trump’s team didn’t appreciate the gesture. But Zelensky’s final, and fatal, miscalculation was to imagine that gathering European support for his defiance of Trump would put him in a strong position. The opposite was true. Zelensky, maestro of the political high-wire, this week mis-stepped into empty space.
Identifying a diplomatic bad move is not the same as blaming the victim. Zelensky has fallen foul of a vengeful and thin-skinned man who has long been itching for an excuse to settle old scores.
But the sad reality is that Ukraine will suffer for this debacle, which hands Putin a victory he could not possibly have dreamed of even a week ago. The Kremlin has long said that it regards Zelensky – whose presidential term expired in May 2024 and who has been ruling under wartime emergency powers ever since – as an illegitimate president. Trump’s blast will be music to their ears.
On a practical level, by signalling that he regards Zelensky as a ‘dictator’, Trump has effectively signalled that there will be no deal until new elections are held in Ukraine – elections which Zelensky is, according to recent polling that shows just 16 per cent of people are willing to vote for his return, almost certain to lose.
The idea of a massive pro-Zelensky sympathy vote in the wake of Trump’s evisceration makes for a cute narrative – but the danger is that in practice a Ukrainian leader who has lost the confidence of the country’s major ally and supporter could struggle for political survival. It will be up to his likely successor and current overwhelming poll-leader General Valery Zaluzhny – currently Ukraine’s ambassador to London – to rebuild the shattered relationship.
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