WASHINGTON – After the public clash between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Voldy Zelenki on Friday, US officials say the path to a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine is extremely uncertain and is entirely dependent on the next step of Ukrainian leaders.
Since the explosion, Trump administration officials have also debated whether to suspend US military aid in Ukraine, according to two administration officials, but it is unclear whether the president will take such a step.
A White House spokesman declined to comment.
Zelensky was in the White House on Friday and signed a contract with Trump to cut money from Ukrainian mining and other important minerals in the United States after the war with Russia ended. Trump said the economic contract with the US would serve as a security guarantee for Ukraine against future Russian invasions, such as those that launched the war in February 2022.
Trump’s aide asked Zelensky to leave the White House after an oval office meeting featuring nearly an hour of comments and questions from reporters.
The official statement since Zelenskyy left the White House on Friday has hardly moved the president since, including a social media post thanking Trump for his support of Ukraine.
“The ball is in President Zelensky’s court,” one executive official said.
“The president thinks Zelensky has to come back to the table and he has to come and do it right,” the official said.
Another administration official said Zelenskyy has not publicly expressed regret so far for what he considers the White House as an unruly approach to meetings in an oval office, adding that officials “don’t know” where the peace process will go from here.
Multiple executives have pushed critics back on how Trump treated the moment. Part of it suggests that a tense exchange of oval offices between Trump and Zelensky is planned. Sen. Jack Reid, a top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the scene a “political ambush” in a statement Friday.
“It was never planned. A source familiar with the conference said, “The administration added, “There was no setup.”
Ending the war in Ukraine is one of Trump’s signature campaign promises, and he said he will do so within 24 hours of taking office during the 2024 race. Friday’s development has further pushed the president from achieving that goal. Two weeks after President Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said negotiations to end the war in Ukraine began “quickly,” then Trump called Zelensky to inform him of his conversation with Putin.
It was followed by what followed between us and Ukrainian officials between us and Ukrainian officials, two weeks of public and private return trips between us and Ukrainian officials.
“The weeks have been challenging,” one official said.
As three Trump administration officials stated, Zelensky approached a meeting with top Trump administration officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, in terms of wanting more from the United States, and after Zelensky refused to sign an early version of the US mineral agreement, he said he was unaware of the political change in the United States after Zelensky made an appearance in the UK and refused to sign a mineral agreement that was publicly headed.
However, negotiations on the mineral trade continued. In the days leading up to Zelenkie’s meeting with Trump, Ukrainian officials pushed for fine-tuning the language of the deal, two administrative officials said.
In his remarks at the oval office, Zelensky reiterated his long-standing public stance when he raised the idea of a “real” security guarantee from the United States beyond economic transactions in Ukrainian minerals – his comments were drawn to some administrative authorities.
“It’s abundantly clear to Zelenskyy that there are no security guarantees in this agreement,” one official said.
Executives said that besides having a complete change in attitude towards the president, it is not accurate what Zelenkey could do to persuade him to re-engage Trump in negotiations with him. They said Trump is not convinced that Zelensky wants to negotiate an end to the war at this point.
“It doesn’t reveal to him the reality that there was a paradigm shift in the November 6 election,” the executive officials said of Zelenskyy.
Another administration official was asked if it was still possible for the United States to work with Zelensky to reach a peace agreement.
Zelenskyy will be in the UK this weekend for a meeting with top European leaders. He will be attending the London Sunday summit to discuss the war with more than 15 European leaders.
