He didn’t. He was the only adult there.
B-b-but he didn’t wear a SUIT! The horror.
He did nothing wrong. Trump and Vance are comprised cowards. I’m sorry Ukraine.
He told the truth. Normally that is fine, but not in a room with a despot like Trump. So yea, that’s a big whoopsie when you are trying to get US aid from that despot. Zelensky is a great guy, and a terrible politician.
I think, or at least hope, that the downvotes come from people who don’t understand what it means to “play the game”. Politicians don’t act the way we’d all like (i.e. telling Trump to go fuck himself) because it’s not playing the game. Zelensky didn’t go to that extreme, but didn’t back down and capitulate either. I hope that when you say he’s a terrible politician, you mean that positively to some degree; he didn’t fully “play the game” with regards to Trump.
That being said, there’s no winning here. There wasn’t gonna be a negotiation there anyway, he was gonna get screwed no matter what.
Yes, zelensky was 100% correct and did the “right” thing, but he has an entire country to think about. Someone should gift him some Machiavelli books.
I don’t see evidence that this was inevitable. I see that zelensky flew to the US specifically for this meeting then was argumentative throughout the 40 minute press event and I don’t think he needed to be. Other leaders meeting with Trump lately have managed to manipulate him better with much less motivation and stakes to do so. I don’t think he gained much more than clout, and lost a seat at a negotiating table to sell mineral rights for something.
Well, he did try to play chess with a pigeon. I don’t know what he was expecting, but at least he made Trump seem like an asshole and a fool.
He made Trump seem like an asshole yes. And that’s why he’s cooked . Trump is not going to support Ukraine going forward because Zelensky made him look bad. You have to appeal to the child to get anything from him.
There was no amount of flattery that was going to get Trump to oppose his Russian masters. The best thing Zelenskyy can do is make it clear that Trump is foolish for not backing Ukraine. It wins him points with European leaders who get to choose between backing Zelenskyy or following a fool and it increases the odds of getting a more favorable outlook from the US in 2-4 years as political tides shift (assuming the US continues holding a semblance of fair elections in the next 2-4 years)
Nah, it’s too late for that. Other leaders are starting learn this too. You keep giving in so Trump asks for more, and then more. Nothing will ever be enough for him.
This is no longer about swallowing your pride and appealing to his enormous ego.
Yeah - Trump, Vance & their ghouls planned this and there is nothing Zelensky could have done except maybe selling off his country to the russians
Technically he’s the first one to say something clearly out of protocol (of course Trump and Vance said a lot of irritating things), but countries don’t break alliances over such things, and they’ve had a lot of time to discuss something without cameras, so it’s simply a prepared scene.
I just don’t know what’s this supposed to illustrate. If it’s a scene by Trump&Vance to “justify” drying out of military support, then why would Zelensky participate in it. If it’s a scene by Zelensky, then what in the world would he gain by it. If it’s a mutually agreed scene, then, again, see previous.
If it’s a scene by Trump&Vance to “justify” drying out of military support, then why would Zelensky participate in it.
Zelensky is interested in public support.
There doesn’t even have to be an agenda. It’s a press meeting as a conclusion to talks. As elected leaders and/or representatives it makes sense to participate.
If he wouldn’t have participated, how would that be better? They could still justify it - in even more of a vacuum to define their own views and spins. It would be worse.
Trump does the press conference before talks. Remember Justin Trudeau got caught on a hot mic for making fun of him for doing this.
The Agreement Zelenskyy was there to sign was never signed, because this all went down before that could happen.
You have to remember that during Trump’s first administration, there was a terrible U.S. ambassador who committed a hit-and-run in the UK, killing a cyclist. The victim’s family traveled to the U.S. to seek justice, hoping the president would revoke her diplomatic immunity since she had fled the country.
The moronic president, treating it like a reality TV stunt, had the ambassador unexpectedly pop into a meeting with the grieving family—on live TV—to say sorry. This is just how his broken brain operates.
Doesn’t explain Zelensky playing along (I can’t call his behavior anything else).
I think they do have some plan to which Zelensky consented (however reluctantly) and this was a “reality TV stunt” to make it appear plausible. Maybe to save Zelensky’s face in Ukraine to have the same partner in negotiations after ceasefire and the new Ukrainian election (has been postponed for almost a year, but that can’t go on indefinitely).
Or maybe yes. In any case this was unfitting.
What’s happening is the US is negotiating with Russia without involving Ukraine. Not too dissimilar from European powers negotiating with Hitler over German claims on Czechoslovakia without Czechoslovakia being part of the negotiations. We know how that ended.
When Trump and Putin reach an agreement (without consideration for Ukraine) they make some bold claim similar to “Peace for our time” and expect everyone to go along with it. When that happens, Ukraine can ignore the agreement and continue fighting, but if too many countries buy Trump’s version of “Peace for our time” then Ukraine could be considered the bad guy because they’re not agreeing to end the war.
But after this? Every country in the world has reiterated their support for Ukraine. Any “peace plan” promoted by Trump will be known to be all about appeasing Putin and be rightly ignored by everyone. Trump’s WWIII comment made it clear that Trump is afraid of Putin, nobody will respect anything he says about Ukraine going forward.
Putin is not Hitler. I’m not saying it’s not a problem to be solved, having taken many lives and taking more, but it’s a different problem.
Putin’s regime is not capable of growing power. It’s only capable of capturing more power. While ultimately similar inability made Nazis weak, they were capable of modernizing industries and rebuilding the military. Maybe if it were done slowly over 30 years instead of 5 years, they’d turn out a similar failure as Putin’s Russia, having corrupted Germany enough to reduce its danger. We don’t know, since they outright started killing people, putting them into prison camps and marching with knives on the streets.
Every country in the world has reiterated their support for Ukraine.
That’s not true, but suppose it were.
If all those countries sent soldiers and equipment to Ukraine, that is, declared war on Russia, it would be over.
If they are not doing this, then what they are actually doing is the degree of real support.
Then maybe Trump’s “deal” just shows it.
I think enough conscripted Ukrainians have already died, and everyone talking against such deal, be it even capitulation, should wish for Americans, Canadians, Brits, French, Germans, Italians … to be conscripted to that frontline to end the war. Or admit they just want some Ukrainians to die for their feeling of justice they have in their safe cozy life.
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I’m sure you’re a Russian troll but if the wartime leader of Ukraine flew to Moscow right now he’d not even make it to the Kremlin before dissappearing. Europe would then condemn Russia for its actions (similar to when the Saudis made that journalist dissappear) and Ukraine would be in a ton of shit.
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