Zelensky knew who he was dealing with. And he misstepped

Seldom in modern times has the fate of a whole nation been so dependent on a single meeting and on a single relationship. When Volodymyr Zelensky entered the Oval Office on Friday he had one job: to repair a deep and catastrophic rift between him and Donald Trump, who the previous week had called the Ukrainian president a ‘dictator’. Zelensky held the future of US support for his country’s defence against Russia in his hands. 

But instead of a reconciliation, the meeting turned into an epochal diplomatic train wreck. So disastrous was the exchange that by the end Ukraine’s ambassador to Washington Oksana Markarova was holding her head in her hands. A planned joint Trump-Zelensky press conference was cancelled, and as Zelensky drove back to his plane for an early departure, Trump delivered the online equivalent of a kick up his departing guest’s backside with a terse message on Truth Social accusing Zelensky of being ‘not ready for peace’.