Policy

Gestures, facial expressions, postures: why the Zelensky-Trump meeting got out of hand

OPINION

Valentyn Kim, political psychologist, expert on non-verbal communication

The conflict between Zelenskyy and Trump during the talks in the presence of journalists.

I’m writing in a hurry, so I may miss some things.

A few non-verbal signs of conflict:

1. Zelenskiy answers Vance and looks only at him. It’s as if Trump is not there at all. Refocusing on a secondary object is a dangerous situation in negotiations. This is a sign of Zelenskyy’s decreased attention, emotionality, and loss of control. As the saying goes, “we are ruled by those who make us angry.” Obviously, Vance “got” Zelenskyy very seriously.

2. Zelensky interrupts Vance. Vance uses non-verbal “stop signals”. These are very rare gestures in political negotiations. In general, politicians use such gestures very rarely and mostly only when talking about some indirect things, like global warming or the terrorist threat. But the use of such gestures towards an opponent is not often used and it is a sign of really high emotional tension.

3. Zelensky is sitting in a defensive posture, and the posture is so defensive that his hands are tucked under his armpits. This is a sign of tension, total disagreement, and emotional resistance.

4. Zelenskyy’s surprised raised eyebrows when Trump entered the room are a sign of disrespect, not attention. Like, “What can you possibly say to me here?” Such facial signals reinforce the demonstration of disrespect for the opponent and indicate a high level of dissatisfaction and loss of control over emotions.

5. Trump has joined in and is trying to “tell off” Zelenskyy. Shaming finger gestures, threatening intonations, a direct reminder that “you are not on a favorable footing here.”

6. Markarova’s illustrative nonverbal behavior is a sign of shame. She, like Zelensky, rubs her nose, which is an example of perceiving the situation as unpleasant.

7. Trump even begins to mock Zelenskyy, trying to imitate his mannerisms in his video messages.

8. Trump’s speech about Hunter Biden, his bedroom, and his laptop is surprising. I’m not sure if it could be a translation error, but the very nature of Trump’s communication indicates a disjointed thinking, which proves at least the fact of how tense the US president feels.

9. Trump’s key message is that you do not express gratitude. That is, at the level of emotions, we are not talking about rational things, but about status distribution. Roughly speaking, it’s about who is a slave to whom.

Conclusions:

1. The emotions of all three participants are sincere and true. It cannot be said that one or all three of them are playing around and trying to portray stronger emotions than those they demonstrate. They really had a fight to the point of complete loss of emotional control.

2. Trump needs gratitude. He says it directly. And the very fact that he is talking about it directly is also a sign of a real complete loss of control by Trump himself. It’s so obvious and has been obvious for so long that it’s strange how the OP didn’t take it into account.

3. All three characters in the conflict are unable to hold on. That is, there was not a single politician among the three politicians who formed this conflict. All of them are amateurs and unbalanced (which was also clear a long time ago).

4. Some “journalists” have already begun to talk about the use of certain negotiation techniques by Zelenskyy or Trump. In fact, the use of techniques is possible only under conditions of automaticity or complete conscious self-control. I have not seen either of these in any of the parties to the conflict.

Consequences:

• Conflict never arises from nothing. It is always preceded by a latent phase, when people are positioned and roles are defined. I think that numerous mutual accusations, insults, references to the 4% rating and many other things played a role here. Most likely, the parties have already come to the table “charged”.
• Then comes a long period of appropriation of the results of the conflict. Obviously, both sides will present their own version of events and try to win supporters of their own version. Whoever wins more new allies will eventually win this conflict. I don’t think this victory will be on our side.
• These kinds of conflicts always reformat the usual allied space. Allies have to take sides or change their position. And, given the rapidity of the conflict, it is unlikely that any of Ukraine’s allies were prepared for such a scenario. I think they’re all taking Corvalol right now in Berlin, Paris, and London.
• There are always beneficiaries in such conflicts. Most often, these are those who are not in the conflict field.
• Powerful conflicts give rise to secondary processes of intensifying the conflict situation. And given the emotionality and unprofessionalism of all parties to the conflict, they are able to continue it and “wave their fists” long after the fight and form new accusations and protests. All of these post-conflict statements will only deepen the split and intensify the conflict.

On a personal note, I don’t know what Ukraine’s diplomatic corps should offer Trump to make the United States maintain at least a neutral attitude toward us. But what the Kremlin can offer to make this attitude even less useful for us is very easy to answer. The price tags of “friendship” with the United States in Russia and in Ukraine now differ by dozens of orders of magnitude.

And yet, modern diplomacy has never been so “popular”.