“A president just disrespected America in the Oval Office. It wasn’t Zelenskyy.”
That was once the decision of the editorial group on the Kyiv Impartial, one in all Ukraine’s main media retailers, on a exceptional spat within the Oval Place of job that performed out on Feb. 28, 2025.
Some Ukrainians I’ve spoken to because the fractious come across, all through which Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy was once many times hectored via U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, have certainly characterised it as disastrous for the rustic. However for others, the incident has been lightly authorised as the brand new truth in U.S.-Ukraine members of the family.
There were some questions directed at Zelenskyy – did he permit himself to be baited into an a controversy that will have actual penalties? Must he have remained silent? However for probably the most phase, the remedy of Ukraine’s president via Trump and Vance has produced a possibly unintentional end result: It has unified a war-weary Ukrainian folks.
As one good friend who has been displaced via warfare from the now occupied town of Nova Kakhovka advised me, there has now not been this degree of mobilization and patriotism in 3 years.
‘The country needs unity’
This harmony is observed within the reaction throughout Ukraine’s political divide.
Petro Poroshenko, an regularly outspoken opponent of Zelenskyy and chief of the opposition celebration Ecu Team spirit, stated on March 1 that, to the marvel of many, he’ll now not criticize Zelenskyy’s efficiency on the White Area. “The country does not need criticism, the country needs unity,” he stated within the video posted on X.
Anecdotally, even the ones Ukrainians who didn’t vote for Zelenskyy have advised me that occasions within the Oval Place of job made them really feel extra supportive of Zelenskyy.
Then again, a way of realism is sinking in over the transferring stance of the U.S. management. Trump’s mentioned consider in Vladimir Putin and his conciliatory feedback over Russian aggression – together with a refusal to recognize Russian warfare crimes – have, for lots of Ukrainians, set low expectancies that the White Area can lend a hand succeed in a handy guide a rough and lasting peace. But, as Inna Sovsun of the opposition celebration Holos famous, “It was difficult to watch a president who’s been a victim of Russian aggression being attacked by the leader of the free world.”
Surroundings the document immediately
The Feb. 28 assembly between the U.S. and Ukrainian leaders adopted weeks of more and more harsh Trump rhetoric towards Zelenskyy. Since being inaugurated on Jan. 20, Trump has known as the Ukrainian chief a “dictator without elections,” claiming – incorrectly – that Zelenksyy had 4% approval rankings. He additionally indicted that the invasion via Russian troops in February 2022 was once Ukraine’s fault.
Such feedback had already made Ukrainians rally round Zelenskyy, who has a wholesome 63% approval ranking, consistent with the most recent polls.
The unpleasant scenes within the Oval Place of job may just see an extra rallying round Zelenskyy, particularly if he can effectively represent his function within the dispute as that of defender of his folks. Doing so would faucet into rising in style resentment over the brand new U.S. management’s obvious unwillingness to recognize Russian warfare crimes.
Huge U.S. and Ukrainian flags dangle at the Kyiv River Port construction on March 2, 2025 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Picture via Pierre Crom/Getty Photographs
Within the days main as much as the Zelenskyy-Trump assembly, the U.S. voted with Russia towards a United International locations answer condemning Russian aggression and adverse the wording of a draft G7 commentary marking the 3rd anniversary of the warfare, which depicted Russia because the aggressor.
Letting Putin off the hook
The indignant exchanges within the Oval Place of job looked as if it would had been sparked via Zelenskyy’s objection to Trump’s statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a person of his phrase.
That refusal to name out Putin – who faces an arrest warrant from the Global Felony Courtroom – angers Ukrainians who’ve suffered Russian aggression for 3 years. To hammer that time house, Zekenskyy confirmed Trump and others within the Oval Place of job pictures of Ukrainian prisoners of warfare who go back from Russian captivity tortured and abused.
As Ukrainian human rights attorney and Nobel Prize winner Oleksandra Matviichuk famous in a Feb. 17 speech, 65% of Ukrainians polled early within the struggle stated their primary unhappiness in finishing the warfare could be “impunity for Russian crimes.” 3 years of struggle can have handiest hardened that sentiment – but the U.S., beneath Trump’s management, appears more and more keen to let Putin off the hook.
Defender of the country – and reality
A big phase of Ukrainian media – each historically pro- and anti-Zelenskyy alike – have since Feb. 28 portrayed the president within the function of a defender of each his country and the reality.
He was once, this framing has it, pressured into the tough place of getting to set the document immediately and problem unfaithful statements in actual time, and in entrance of the reputedly adversarial chief of the arena’s biggest financial system, whose fortify has been a very powerful in Ukraine’s try to repel the invading Russian military.
To a few, maintaining silent would had been tantamount to capitulation, however others have puzzled Zelenskyy’s manner.
Whilst nonetheless keeping up that Zelenskyy’s key message was once proper, some Ukrainians have steered that his emotional tone within the Oval Place of job was once now not positive.
Opposition lawmaker Oleskiy Goncharenko steered in an interview on CNN that Zelenskyy must had been extra “diplomatic” and extra “calm” for the reason that the stakes have been so top.
In the meantime, there have been additionally those that puzzled the verdict to carry such the most important dialog in entrance of the clicking, particularly with out the usage of skilled translators who doubtlessly will have tamped down the rhetoric and slowed the tempo of the alternate. Thus, as Tymofiy Mylovanov, the adviser to the place of work of the president and head of the Kyiv Faculty of Economics put it, some issues may just “have been lost in translation.”
‘Zelensky is our democratic leader’
So the place does the Oval Place of job dispute depart each Zelenskyy and U.S.-Ukrainian members of the family?
Within the aftermath of the dispute, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham – who has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine – steered that Zelenskyy must surrender, the consequences being that his dating with Trump was once so damaged that his presence is now counterproductive for Ukraine’s priorities.
This can be a line that hasn’t long gone down smartly in Ukraine. Kira Rudyk, the chief of opposition celebration Holos, retorted that it was once as much as the Ukrainian folks by myself to make a decision on their management and long term.
Additionally, to many Ukrainians the barrier to harmonious Ukraine-U.S. members of the family isn’t Zelenskyy, however Trump.
Mustafa Nayyem, who served in Zelesnkyy’s govt, summed up the view of many Ukrainians via claiming in a social media publish that the Trump management “does not just dislike Ukraine. They despise us.” The “contempt is deeper than indifference, and more dangerous than outright hostility,” he added within the Feb. 28 publish.
Intentional provocation
Serhii Sternenko, a Ukrainian activist attorney and blogger, described the Oval Place of job spat as an intentional provocation on behalf of Trump to discredit Ukraine as an unreliable spouse within the peace negotiations.
Sternenko isn’t by myself in his review. Journalist and blogger Vitaly Portnikov argued that the spat was once the results of Trump’s unrealistic promise of finishing the warfare temporarily being faced with the truth that in all probability Russia does now not wish to make any concessions. The pondering this is Putin has proven no indication that he’ll bend on his warfare objectives, so for Trump, framing Zelenskyy as “not ready for peace” lets in the U.S. president to stroll clear of his marketing campaign promise with out accepting defeat.
Amongst pals: Zelenskyy with Britain’s High Minister Keir Starmer and France’s President Emmanuel Macron on March 2, 2025.
Justin Tallis – WPA Pool/Getty Photographs
A brand new truth
Past the headlines and preliminary reactions from Ukrainian politicians, newshounds and civilians, there could also be any other sentiment this is rising: resignation to the brand new truth.
Maximum Ukrainians need an finish to warfare, however in some way that preserves their sovereignty and promises long term safety. Till lately, that was once shared via the occupants of the White Area. It’s changing into more and more transparent to many Ukrainians that, with reference the warfare in Ukraine, the U.S. will play a unique function beneath Trump – that means Ukraine will more and more glance to Ecu leaders as number one companions.
Most likely Goncharenko, the opposition member of Ukraine’s Parliament, easiest summed up the effects of the Oval Place of job spat: “It was not Ukraine, it was not the United States who won … it was Putin.”
