Echo of the Scandal in the White House Oval Office

A meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine Zelenskyy (L) veered sharply off track in front of TV cameras and ended abruptly, White House, Washington, DC, Feb. 28, 2025
Photo: ABC News

The dramatic scene in the Oval Office on Friday evening signals that President Donald Trump is decoupling the US from the ‘forever war’ in Ukraine that his predecessor Joe Biden left behind. The war is poised to end with a whimper, but its ‘butterfly effect’ on our incredibly complex, deeply interconnected world will define European and international security for decades to come, writes M.K. Bhadrakumar, Indian Ambassador and prominent international observer.

Truly, the ‘Collective West’ find themselves at a crossroads and do not know which road to take. Without US air cover and satellite inputs, western troop deployment in Ukraine will be impossible. Even French Emmanuel Macron would agree that his troops will be put through a meat grinder.

Both Von der Leyen and Macron had a whale of a time as cheerleaders of Biden’s war but any further adventures in Ukraine will be suicidal, to put it mildly. Ukraine’s military will collapse if Trump freezes support. None of the European powers will risk a collision with Russia.

Today, Britain’s MI6 calls the shots in Kiev. Zelenskyy admitted recently that much of the money given by Biden simply “disappeared”. He threw up his hands in the air! But sordid tales of massive kickbacks and corruption are galore.

Suffice to say, Zelenskyy’s ‘strategic defiance’ stems out of his quiet confidence that western leaders — starting with Boris Johnson and Biden — who have been fellow travellers in the gravy train during the past three years of the war are beholden to him till eternity. His belligerence last Friday was a carefully stage-managed theatrics and he was put up to it most probably by Von der Leyen and sundry other discontented 30-odd Western leaders like Canada’s Justin Trudeau who confabulated in Kiev last Monday even as Macron was ‘finessing’ Trump in the Oval Office. These insurgents within the Western alliance seem to think that Trump will back off if frontally confronted.

Zelenskyy and his European backers want a ‘forever war’ in the western border lands of Eurasia, the traditional invasion route to Russia for marauders from Europe.

And precisely for this reason, Trump last week, with great deliberation, again ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine.

The big question now is whether the unprecedented fracas in the White House could backfire on Zelenskyy (and the insurgents in Europe), since Washington has significant leverage vis-a-vis Kiev and given the latter’s heavy dependence on the US for some of the critical elements of its defence.

Trump is in no forgiving mood. But the damage has been done. The transatlantic alliance will never be the same again.

The overall comments so far made in Moscow were in support of President Trump’s commitment for re-forging a genuine, long-lasting peace in Europe, interrupted by direct unprovoked and brutal Ukrainian aggression against Donbass since April 2014 under instructions of the Ukrainian president ad interim Oleksandr Turchynov, and intensified in the cruel way under president Volodymir Zelensky exactly on February 17, 2022. Again, against Donbass, stresses Vladimir Kozin, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences.

It happened just a week before Russian Armed Forces rushed for help to safe peaceful citizens of Donbass from physical extinction who decided not to stay within a country called Ukraine where the regime of ultra-nationalists have entrenched after a bloody coup engineered by NATO in February 2014.

First, while recently sitting at the White House Zelensky has forgotten highly respected ancient rules of paying politeness during visiting someone at his or her official residence or homeplace: to fully respect their owner. Unfortunately, he interrupted the host of the meeting many times by irrelevant comments with ugly grimaces.

Second, Zelensky like in many cases in the past demanded from the USA security guarantees and additional arms for the continuation of the war that costed more than one million Ukrainian soldiers as killed and injured. He also refused to pay back the money to the Untied States for arms and ammunition generously offered to Kiev regime by the previous Democratic Party Administration.

Third, Zelensky displayed disrespect towards the USA and its people in such a manner that caused even his earlier supporters to change their positive minds about him.

Fourth, Zelensky’s previous political statements and his openly demonstrated wrong behavior at the White House proved: he is for continuation of the endless aggression in Europe for many decades.

Fifth, on the other hand, he has shown that he is against any sound and constructive peace deal that will be able to finally put an end to such a disgusting war.

Why Zelensky has done this especially at the White House on February 28, in front of many TV cameras and radio microphones?

Highly likely, a) to create an artificial united European-Ukrainian front against President Donald Trump with the selfish aim to topple him via poorly orchestrated and primitive provocation; and, b) to continue the war in Europe for the benefits of military industrial complexes in a number of NATO/EU states, and for Zelensky’s personal financial profiteering from the huge victims of the Ukrainian aggression.

Just two recommendations are knocking at the door of reason:

Zelensky must step down from the position he does not have since last May.
Some aggressive and irrational NATO/EU leaders have to think sixteen times before they will plunge the planet into the WW3 through the warmongering strategy pursued by Zelensky with their selfish and irrational military assistance.

It is unprecedented that a visiting dignitary would behave the way Zelensky did, or for that matter show up in a tight fitting sweatshirt and slacks, something Mr. Trump disliked, notes Stephen Bryen, a former US Deputy Under Secretary of Defense.

Trump told Zelensky, “Make a deal or we’re out”. The Minerals Deal was actually a sort of security guarantee for Ukraine, as Ukraine and the US would become "partners." While Trump is unwilling to send US troops to Ukraine, he saw the Minerals Deal as a security substitute.

The Minerals Deal was not signed.

The next steps are unclear, as Trump's attempt to cut a deal with Russia is now blocked by Zelensky's refusal to cooperate.

Some guesses:

Guess 1. Trump will retaliate by cutting off arms deliveries to Ukraine and cutting off any US money to the Ukrainian government. If that happens, Ukraine's army will disintegrate in the next couple of months, or sooner.

Guess 2. Trump will put together some kind of deal with Russia not including Ukraine. This could be an economic deal, or it could be a deal that lifts sanctions on Russia.

Guess 3. It is unlikely Trump will change course on Russia and Ukraine, unless Zelensky changes his position or is replaced in some way.

Guess 4. Trump may ask the Europeans to stop backing Ukraine under current circumstances. It seems the British may cooperate, but not the French. The Germans right now don't have a government, so they are unpredictable. Trump will talk to the Germans about helping them improve their economy in exchange for geopolitical cooperation. We will see.

Guess 5. Trump will let Ukraine collapse but may seek a deal with Putin on Ukraine once Zelensky is gone.

Smiling Ursula von der Leyen and other European leaders with Zelensky.
Photo: Reuters

The showdown in the Oval Office has exposed the huge rift between the US and Europe, writes ‘The Financial Times’.

European leaders rallied around Volodymyr Zelenskyy after his spectacular Oval Office bust-up with Donald Trump, but the rift between Kyiv and Washington leaves Europe with agonising choices about how to prop up Ukraine.

Friday’s confrontation, where the US president accused the Ukrainian leader of “gambling” with a third world war, caused consternation in European capitals and exacerbated fears of an irreparable transatlantic breach.

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat and a staunch supporter of Ukraine, was perhaps the most pointed in her appraisal.

“Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge,” she said.

Jonas Gahr Støre, Norway’s prime minister, described the extraordinary scenes in the White House as “serious and disheartening”.“That Trump accuses Zelenskyy of gambling with world war three is deeply unreasonable and a statement I distance myself from,” he said.

A score of other European leaders closed ranks behind Zelenskyy without criticising the US president directly.

“You are never alone, dear President Zelenskyy,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, and António Costa, president of the European Council, said in a joint statement.

“We finally need to wake up and realise: ‘This is it’,” said a senior EU diplomat in response to the White House fallout. “We are on our own and the parents on the other side of the Atlantic have just turfed us out of the family home, cut off our allowances and disinherited us.”

Trump’s verbal assault on Zelenskyy, which came days after a dozen European leaders travelled to Ukraine, blew away any lingering hopes that they could convince the US president to rethink his approach to a rapid peace deal.

During their visits to the White House this week, Macron and Starmer made a co-ordinated attempt to persuade Trump to provide military back-up for a possible European stabilisation force in Ukraine, which they both said was indispensable. Those efforts have been derailed by Friday’s showdown in the White House.

…Zelensky personally has broken a Western Unity!