“A president just disrespected America in the Oval Office. It wasn’t Zelenskyy.”
That used to be the decision of the editorial group on the Kyiv Unbiased, considered one of Ukraine’s main media shops, on a exceptional spat within the Oval Place of job that performed out on Feb. 28, 2025.
Some Ukrainians I’ve spoken to for the reason that fractious come across, all the way through which Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy used to be time and again hectored through 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 flippantly authorized as the brand new truth in U.S.-Ukraine family members.
There were some questions directed at Zelenskyy – did he permit himself to be baited into an a controversy that will have actual penalties? Will have to he have remained silent? However for essentially the most section, the remedy of Ukraine’s president through Trump and Vance has produced a possibly accidental outcome: It has unified a war-weary Ukrainian other folks.
As one buddy who has been displaced through conflict from the now occupied town of Nova Kakhovka informed me, there has no longer been this stage of mobilization and patriotism in 3 years.
‘The country needs unity’
This team spirit is observed within the reaction throughout Ukraine’s political divide.
Petro Poroshenko, an incessantly outspoken opponent of Zelenskyy and chief of the opposition celebration Eu Cohesion, stated on March 1 that, to the marvel of many, he’s going to no longer 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 informed me that occasions within the Oval Place of job made them really feel extra supportive of Zelenskyy.
On the other hand, a way of realism is sinking in over the moving stance of the U.S. management. Trump’s said believe in Vladimir Putin and his conciliatory feedback over Russian aggression – together with a refusal to recognize Russian conflict crimes – have, for plenty of Ukrainians, set low expectancies that the White Area can assist succeed in a snappy 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 report instantly
The Feb. 28 assembly between the U.S. and Ukrainian leaders adopted weeks of increasingly 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 through Russian troops in February 2022 used to be Ukraine’s fault.
Such feedback had already made Ukrainians rally round Zelenskyy, who has a wholesome 63% approval score, in step with the most recent polls.
The unpleasant scenes within the Oval Place of job may see an extra rallying round Zelenskyy, particularly if he can effectively represent his function within the dispute as that of defender of his other folks. Doing so would faucet into rising in style resentment over the brand new U.S. management’s obvious unwillingness to recognize Russian conflict crimes.
Massive U.S. and Ukrainian flags cling at the Kyiv River Port construction on March 2, 2025 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Photograph through Pierre Crom/Getty Photographs
Within the days main as much as the Zelenskyy-Trump assembly, the U.S. voted with Russia towards a United Countries solution condemning Russian aggression and adversarial the wording of a draft G7 commentary marking the 3rd anniversary of the conflict, which depicted Russia because the aggressor.
Letting Putin off the hook
The offended exchanges within the Oval Place of job appeared to had been sparked through 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 World Legal 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 conflict 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 war stated their major sadness in finishing the conflict can be “impunity for Russian crimes.” 3 years of war may have most effective hardened that sentiment – but the U.S., underneath Trump’s management, seems increasingly 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 used to be, this framing has it, pressured into the tricky place of getting to set the report instantly and problem unfaithful statements in actual time, and in entrance of the reputedly adverse chief of the arena’s greatest economic system, whose toughen has been an important in Ukraine’s try to repel the invading Russian military.
To a couple, preserving silent would had been tantamount to capitulation, however others have wondered Zelenskyy’s method.
Whilst nonetheless keeping up that Zelenskyy’s key message used to be proper, some Ukrainians have prompt that his emotional tone within the Oval Place of job used to be no longer positive.
Opposition lawmaker Oleskiy Goncharenko prompt in an interview on CNN that Zelenskyy must had been extra “diplomatic” and extra “calm” for the reason that the stakes had been so prime.
In the meantime, there have been additionally those that wondered the verdict to carry such the most important dialog in entrance of the click, particularly with out using skilled translators who probably will have tamped down the rhetoric and slowed the tempo of the change. Thus, as Tymofiy Mylovanov, the adviser to the place of business of the president and head of the Kyiv College of Economics put it, some issues may “have been lost in translation.”
‘Zelensky is our democratic leader’
So the place does the Oval Place of job dispute go away each Zelenskyy and U.S.-Ukrainian family members?
Within the aftermath of the dispute, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham – who has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine – prompt that Zelenskyy must surrender, the results being that his courting with Trump used to be so damaged that his presence is now counterproductive for Ukraine’s priorities.
This can be a line that hasn’t long gone down neatly in Ukraine. Kira Rudyk, the chief of opposition celebration Holos, retorted that it used to be as much as the Ukrainian other folks on my own to make a decision on their management and long term.
Additionally, to many Ukrainians the barrier to harmonious Ukraine-U.S. family members isn’t Zelenskyy, however Trump.
Mustafa Nayyem, who served in Zelesnkyy’s govt, summed up the view of many Ukrainians through claiming in a social media submit 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 submit.
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 on my own in his review. Journalist and blogger Vitaly Portnikov argued that the spat used to be the results of Trump’s unrealistic promise of finishing the conflict briefly being faced with the truth that in all probability Russia does no longer wish to make any concessions. The considering here’s Putin has proven no indication that he’s going to bend on his conflict 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 Top 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 may be any other sentiment this is rising: resignation to the brand new truth.
Maximum Ukrainians need an finish to conflict, however in some way that preserves their sovereignty and promises long term safety. Till just lately, that used to be shared through the occupants of the White Area. It’s turning into increasingly more transparent to many Ukrainians that, with regard the conflict in Ukraine, the U.S. will play a distinct function underneath Trump – that means Ukraine will increasingly more glance to Eu leaders as number one companions.
In all probability Goncharenko, the opposition member of Ukraine’s Parliament, easiest summed up the results of the Oval Place of job spat: “It was not Ukraine, it was not the United States who won … it was Putin.”
