Is it true that Zelensky has suddenly and suprisely said he is ready to work under Trump's 'strong leadership'?

Jean-Marie Valheur

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fascinated by geopolitics 12h

Is it true that Zelensky has suddenly and suprisely said he is ready to work under Trump's 'strong leadership' after Trump halted military aid to Ukraine?

He just now released a statement in which he called the incident in the Oval Office “regrettable”.[1]

 Zelensky’s statement read in full:

“Our meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to make things right. We would like future cooperation and communication to be constructive. None of us wants an endless war. Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.”

He’s mentioning things like “Trump’s strong leadership” and how is willing to work with him. A sensible approach, although I’ll never quite get over the fact that some people require this much constant ass-kissing to function.

Many Ukraine allies had suggested this approach. Even the chief of NATO, Mark Rutte, had told Zelensky as much — that he needed to make amends with the White House, and try to at least express regret over what had transpired. Sometimes in politics, we need to swallow our words and suck up to those we still need on our side.

The statement stops short of a full apology, which makes sense as there isn’t really anything to apologize for; nothing Zelensky told Trump and Vance was untrue, he didn’t lie nor did he insult the American side. It was, at most, a matter of striking the wrong tone at the time, although Trump-Vance seemed to be fishing for a confrontation.

Will this suffice? I’m not sure. My gut tells me the current American administration has made up its mind, and they will not reverse course on Ukraine and Russia. I hope I’m wrong, and I hope a better deal can be found that provides Ukraine with strong security guarantees from the US, NATO and it’s European partners. But I’m not getting my hopes up. The ball is in Trump’s court.

Footnotes

[1] https://thehill.com/policy/international/5175104-volodymyr-zelensky-donald-trump-white-house-spat-peace-talks/