According to Axios, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky angered his American counterpart, Donald Trump, so much during U.S.-Russia negotiations that Trump was on the verge of halting military aid to Ukraine.
Sources from the publication claim that one of the White House officials involved in the negotiations said:
Zelensky is an actor who made the typical mistake of theater people: he started to think he was the character he plays on stage. Yes, he showed courage in standing up to Russia, but if it weren’t for our support, he would already be dead. It’s time for him to leave the stage, taking all this drama with him.
The sources also claim that over the past nine days, five incidents occurred that angered Trump and his team. In their view, Zelensky demonstrated how not to handle “the art of the deal” while trying to gain Trump’s support.
On February 12, Trump said Zelensky was “rude” to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury when he visited Kyiv and postponed a meeting because he “overslept.”
On February 14, at the Munich Security Conference, Zelensky “surprised” U.S. Vice President Jay D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio by stating that he didn’t have the authority to approve a deal on mineral resources without parliamentary approval.
On February 15, the Ukrainian president publicly rejected a proposal at the conference, and his remarks were much more negative than what he had said previously.
On February 18, during U.S.-Russia negotiations in Riyadh, Zelensky criticized the meeting, claiming it took place without Ukraine’s participation. Following this, Trump “became furious” and expressed his displeasure with Zelensky at a press conference.
On February 19, Zelensky responded that Trump “lives in a world of disinformation,” and Trump, in turn, posted a message calling him a “dictator without elections.”
