Today at 01:04
During the unsuccessful February 28 talks between the Ukrainian and U.S. presidents at the White House, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was most troubled by the influence of Russian disinformation on Donald Trump’s administration.
That’s according to an article published by the Time news magazine, which interviewed Zelenskyy, Ukrinform reports.
Trump held a call with Putin, who told the U.S. president that thousands of Ukrainian troops in Kursk had been surrounded by Russian forces. “That was a lie,” Zelenskyy said. But Trump continued to amplify it, journalist Simon Shuster reported.
Zelenskyy noted that U.S. officials had begun taking Putin at his word, even when their own intelligence contradicted him, the journalist added.
“I believe Russia has managed to influence some people on the White House team through information,” Shuster quoted Zelenskyy as saying. “Their signal to the Americans was that the Ukrainians do not want to end the war, and something should be done to force them.”
Zelensky said that Ukrainians consider America an ally. “But in that moment there was the sense of not being allies, or not taking the position of an ally,” Zelenskyy said. “In that conversation, I was defending the dignity of Ukraine.”
To Zelenskyy’s dismay, Trump has agreed to some of these concessions without getting much in return. He has taken Ukraine’s bid to join NATO off the table. He has even suggested he would welcome Russia back into the G7, the club of the world’s wealthiest democracies.
Allowing such a thing, Zelenskyy says, would lift the only concrete punishment Putin has faced for the invasion of Ukraine: his isolation. “That’s a big compromise,” Zelenskyy said. “Imagine releasing Hitler from his political isolation.”
However, Zelenskyy still hopes Trump will realize that Putin is weaker than he seems, that he cannot be trusted, and that Russia’s victory in this war would not only be a disaster for Ukraine. It would be a loss, Zelenskyy said, for the entire West, and especially for the U.S. and its current leaders. Trump and his team would not accept such a loss, Zelenskyy added.
“They have their own ambitions. They see their role in history,” not only as powerful leaders but as those who can achieve a dignified end to the war. “That’s why I don’t believe in these apocalyptic scenarios,” Zelenskyy said.
