Zelenskyy admits Trump clash ‘not good’ as European leaders rally round Ukraine – live
Zelenskyy says he wants to remain friends with Trump
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, appeared on US television on Friday after his bust-up with Trump in the White House, attempting to mitigate the political damage caused by the confrontation.
“I’m very thankful to Americans for all your support,” he said in an interview with Fox News. “You helped us a lot from the very beginning … you helped us to survive.”
Asked if he owed the president an apology, Zelensky said: “I respect the president and I respect American people.”
“I think we have to be very open and very honest, and am not sure we did something bad,” he added.
He later admitted the public argument was “not good” but seemed confident that his relationship with the US president could recover.
“I just want to be honest and I just want our partners to understand the situation correctly and I want to understand everything correctly. That’s about us, not to lose our friendship,” he said.
Key events
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy departs after a interview with Bret Baier during a taping of FOX News Channel’s Special Report with Bret Baier in Washington, Friday, Feb. 28, 2025. Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP
Why does Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy not wear a suit?
Zelensky visited the White House on Friday to sign a deal on rare minerals, but his meeting with President Donald Trump quickly deteriorated in front of a world audience.
Tensions began to boil over when a reporter asked the Ukrainian leader why he was not wearing a suit to the meeting.
“Why don’t you wear a suit? Do you own a suit?” the reporter asked accusatorily.
“Do you have a problem?” Zelensky spat back.
“A lot of Americans have a problem with those who don’t respect the dress code of the Oval Office,” the reporter responded.
Zelensky said, “I will wear a (suit) costume after this war finishes, yes. Maybe something like yours, yes, maybe something better. I don’t know, we will see. Maybe something cheaper. Thank you,” he responded
Zelenskyy does not wear a suit to convey a simple message: his country is at war. Optics are crucial in politics, where every move a leader makes is heavily interpreted and scrutinised.
Wearing a suit to formal engagements could prompt commentators to allege that Zelenskyy is not taking the conflict with Russia seriously or that the war was winding down.
It’s crucial that the Ukrainian president continues to signal that there’s a war on; he’s still fighting it, and he needs help. Suits and ties could signal business as usual, and there is nothing usual about fighting off a hostile invasion.
Zelenskyy’s plane arrives in UK ahead of a crucial summit in London
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plane has landed in the UK ahead of tomorrow’s European defence summit. TV footage showed a convoy of cars departing the runway at London Stansted airport.
Keir Starmer will hold talks with Zelenskyy and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni in Downing Street on Sunday before the summit aimed at securing “lasting and enforced” peace in Ukraine.
A Downing Street spokesperson said on Friday that “the UK has made it clear that we’ll play our full part in ensuring a just and lasting peace deal on Ukraine’s terms, backed up by strong security guarantees”.
The spokesperson added:
Just this week we demonstrated our commitment to that confirming we’ll increase defence spending to 2.5% by 2027. But that peace deal has to come first and as you know the prime minister will meet President Zelensky before convening European leaders in London on Sunday to continue those discussions.
The deal has to come first, but our teams are going to be talking about how we make sure that deal sticks and is lasting and enforced.
The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) has expressed strong support for Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrinform news agency reports.
This statement was made by the UWC president, Paul Grod, and published on the organisation’s website.
We urge the United States to take decisive steps to support Ukraine’s victory, ensuring it has the military, economic, and political backing required to end Russia’s brutal war. A strong and sovereign Ukraine is vital to regional stability, global security, and the defence of democratic values worldwide.”
Here are some images from Friday’s dramatic clash in the Oval Office…
The Republican senator Lindsey Graham called for Zelenskyy to change his tune or resign, just hours after attending a friendly meeting between Zelenskyy and a dozen senators, Reuters reports.
“What I saw in the Oval Office was disrespectful, and I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelenskyy again,” Graham told reporters as he left the White House after the shouting match heard around the world.
“He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change,” the South Carolina senator said.
The Tennessee senator Bill Hagerty, who was ambassador to Japan during Trump’s first term, posted on X: “The United States of America will no longer be taken for granted.”
Not every Republican was on Trump’s side. The New York congressman Mike Lawler called the Oval Office meeting “a missed opportunity for both the United States and Ukraine – [to reach] an agreement that would undoubtedly result in stronger economic and security cooperation”.
Don Bacon, a moderate Republican congressman from Nebraska, threw his support behind Kyiv. “A bad day for America’s foreign policy. Ukraine wants independence, free markets and rule of law. It wants to be part of the west. Russia hates us and our western values. We should be clear that we stand for freedom,” he said in a statement.
Zelenskyy visited Washington to help broker an agreement to jointly develop Ukraine’s rich natural resources with the US.
Congressman Michael McCaul, the chairman emeritus of the House foreign affairs committee, said he still hoped for a real and lasting peace that would ensure Ukraine would be free from further Russian aggression. “I also urge President Zelensky to sign the mineral deal immediately,” the Texas lawmaker posted on X. “It will create an economic partnership between the United States and Ukraine. It is in both of our interests to get this deal done.”
“Respectable diplomacy is essential for peace,” the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, has said, after the heated exchange between Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.
In a social media post on Friday, the leader of the opposition wrote:
We need to remember that the villain is the war criminal President Putin who illegally invaded another sovereign country – Ukraine. A divided west only benefits Russia. Now is the time for more cooperation, not less.
Badenoch insisted that any peace agreement must be reached with Ukraine at the table and would require security guarantees.
“We cannot lose sight of the fact that tonight air raid sirens are sounding in Ukraine,” she added.
Meanwhile, a statement from No 10 on Friday night confirmed the prime minister had “unwavering support for Ukraine”.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, met with a senior North Korean official in Moscow earlier this week, Pyongyang’s state media said on Saturday, according to Agence France-Presse.
On the same day, South Korea’s spy agency said the North had deployed more troops to Russia to fight Ukraine, without disclosing how many.
Seoul’s intelligence services added that North Korea had redeployed its soldiers to the frontline in Kursk. Ukraine previously said they had been withdrawn from the Russian border region after heavy losses.
Ri Hi-yong, a member of North Korea’s politburo and secretary of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, met Putin in the Kremlin, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
During the meeting, Putin reportedly thanked North Korea for “its positive support to the Russian Federation”. The Kremlin confirmed the meeting in a statement on Thursday.
Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has officially acknowledged that North Koreans have been deployed to fight against Ukraine.
Republican Congressman says the only winner from Trump-Zelenskyy row was Putin
The very public clash between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump looked more like a scene from the WWE than a diplomatic meeting held between world leaders, and the fallout has unsettled Trump’s supporters in the media and in Congress.
Not everyone in the Republican Party shares Trump’s seeming admiration for Vladimir Putin.
The Republican congressman Mike Lawler told PBS News that Friday’s meeting was a “missed opportunity” and the “only winner here was Vladimir Putin”.
He also said it was “unfortunate” that the row spilled out into the public.
“The only winner here was Vladimir Putin and Russia, because a deal did not come to be, which is also why I believe it’s critically important for Zelenskyy and Trump to get back together and work towards finalising an agreement,” he said.
“When this conflict does come to an end, and it will at some point, Ukraine is going to need significant US and European investment to rebuild.”
The Ukrainian MP Lisa Yasko has said the heated argument between Trump and Zelenskyy in the White House yesterday “was a big shock … especially for ordinary Ukrainians who still believed that the US and the west would help us”.
“It’s not a gamble. It’s about millions of people. So this is very sensitive to all of us,” she told BBC’s Radio 5 Live, adding: “We want to end war, but we also want to have respect. And we also don’t want to forget who the aggressor is.”
She added: “Every conversation is about people’s lives … Sometimes you have to say no, if you understand that it will not bring you long-term peace. A ceasefire without any understanding of future security is not going to help us.”
Drone pilots from Ukraine’s state border guard service successfully destroyed Russian targets in the Luhansk region, the Ukrinform news agency reports.
“Pilots of the rapid response command of the Phoenix reconnaissance-strike UAV systems from the Pomsta (Vengeance) Brigade have effectively destroyed infantry, weaponry, and enemy armoured vehicles in the areas of Kreminna and Serebrianskyi forest. A tank, a cannon, 16 vehicles of the invaders, a repeater, and enemy infantry are reported to have been destroyed,” the statement on Telegram reads.
Meanwhile, in the Odesa region, Russian drones caused extensive fires, killed one person and injured three others.
The Russian defence ministry says Russian forces have captured Burlatske in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukranian people are ‘not alone’ says Zelensky after vocal support from world leaders
Volodymyr Zelenskyy says it is “very important” that the Ukraine is heard and not forgotten after his calamitous meeting with Donald Trump in the White House on Friday.
The Ukrainian leader said: “People in Ukraine need to know that they are not alone, that their interests are represented in every country, in every corner of the world.”
Andrey Kurkov
It’s warming up in Kyiv. The temperature has risen from -5C to 4C. Sometimes, the sun peeps through breaks in the clouds, but Kyivites are not much cheered by the sunshine. They are not watching for signs of spring as they usually do at this time of year. The atmosphere in the city and in the country as a whole has been one of nervous expectation. This was not an expectation of an end to military action or the signing of a peace treaty with Russia – nothing so specific. Indeed, it was not at all clear what we were waiting for, but it was something connected with Donald Trump and the change in US policy towards Ukraine.
Clarity emerged at today’s macabre theatre at the White House: handshakes, a thumbs up and some fist pumps from the US president, before Trump sat side by side with Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss a minerals-for-war-support deal and to humiliate him. At the same time, air raid sirens were sounding in northern and eastern Ukraine. Soon the talks were off and Zelenskyy was gone…
Simon Smith, the former British ambassador to Ukraine, has told Sky News that Volodymyr Zelenskyy was “set up” by the White House team.
Smith said he had never seen anything like the two leaders’ argument yesterday. “Zelenskyy has taken a lot of punishment and has gone through a lot with heroic resilience,” he said. “To be subjected to this sort of torture in the White House session was quite astonishing.”
Smith added: “He looked very much on his own while the White House team piled into him. It showed just how deep Trump’s resentment of him still is. That goes back to Trump’s feeling that Zelenskyy didn’t help him during his first term. Also, Trump has been keen to move fast on the conflict, and Zelenskyy is infuriating him by raising objections to that plan – objections that are entirely reasonable.”
Smith also noted the different attitude Trump shows to Vladimir Putin compared with traditional allies in Nato. “He has piled all the pressure on Ukraine and subjected European allies to a lot of pressure, and Putin appears to have suffered no pressure whatsoever. There is a really worrying question here about where the US is going under Trump?”
Zelenskyy says he wants to remain friends with Trump
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, appeared on US television on Friday after his bust-up with Trump in the White House, attempting to mitigate the political damage caused by the confrontation.
“I’m very thankful to Americans for all your support,” he said in an interview with Fox News. “You helped us a lot from the very beginning … you helped us to survive.”
Asked if he owed the president an apology, Zelensky said: “I respect the president and I respect American people.”
“I think we have to be very open and very honest, and am not sure we did something bad,” he added.
He later admitted the public argument was “not good” but seemed confident that his relationship with the US president could recover.
“I just want to be honest and I just want our partners to understand the situation correctly and I want to understand everything correctly. That’s about us, not to lose our friendship,” he said.
