“Your problems start right now”: Trump and Zelensky argue on live TV (video)
28 February 20:24
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US President Donald Trump ended their meeting on camera in front of journalists with a dispute. This is reported by Komersant ukrainskyi with reference to a live broadcast of the conversation between the two presidents.
The dispute began with Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s sharp reaction to the words of US Vice President J.D. Vance.
“I speak for the diplomacy that prevented your country from being destroyed. Now you have a shortage of people, men. I see the history, I see what is happening to the Ukrainian people. I see that you cannot recruit people into the army,” Vance said.
In response, the Ukrainian leader noted that the war has been going on since 2014 and no one has stopped it. The US president replied as follows:
“You are disrespecting our country. It’s going to be World War III, you have no right to play with this. We gave you 350 billion dollars. You are now in a difficult situation. You do not have strong cards in your hands. We want to save your country and stop the war. You cannot say, “I don’t want to stop the war”. Without us, you don’t have any strong cards to play,” Trump said.
To which the President of Ukraine replied that he “did not come here to play cards”.
The head of Ukraine added that it is impossible to negotiate with Russia diplomatically, that his own attempts to stop the conflict through various treaties and gas agreements did not stop Moscow from aggression.
In the end, Donald Trump gave Volodymyr Zelenskyy an ultimatum:
“Either we sign the deal or we leave. You don’t have a strong position. You should be thanking us. And you are not doing it. This is bad,” the American leader said.
Donald Trump also finally told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that “your problems are starting right now.”
