 "US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. File Image/ AFP")
After US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, engaged in a heated spat in the White House, American Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Ukrainian president should apologise. Rubio described the meeting as a “fiasco” while questioning whether the Ukrainian leader wanted peace in the country’s war with Russia.
Zelenskyy should “apologize for turning this thing into the fiasco for him that it became,” Rubio said in an interview with CNN. The remarks from the secretary came shortly after Zelenskyy’s White House meeting with Trump and Vice President JD Vance turned into a shouting match.
“When you start talking about that aggressively – and the president is a deal maker, he made deals his entire life – you’re not going to get people to the table,” Rubio said. “And so you start to perceive that maybe Zelensky doesn’t want a peace deal. He says he does, but maybe he doesn’t,” he added.
Rubio said the meeting went off the rail after Vice President JD Vance’s interaction with Zelenskyy. “That active, open undermining of efforts to bring about peace is deeply frustrating for everyone who’s been involved in communications with them leading up to today, and I think he should apologize for wasting our time for a meeting that was going to end the way it did,” the secretary said.
What went down in the White House?
The Ukrainian leader had to leave the White House early, and the highly anticipated mineral deal between the two nations went up in the air after the intense clash between Trump and Zelesnkyy. While sitting in front of American reporters, the Potus berated his Ukrainian counterpart along with VP JD Vance.
“You’re not acting at all thankful”, Trump told Zelenskyy while talking about the support Ukraine has received from the US throughout the war. “You’re gambling with World War III,” the American leader remarked. The Ukrainian leader emphasised that he has been grateful for the support, but he was frequently interrupted by both Trump and Vance.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsA scheduled press conference between the two leaders was subsequently cancelled, and the Ukrainian leader left the White House without taking any questions. Hours later, he only appeared in the 30-minute Fox News interview, where he attempted to salvage whatever was left in US-Ukraine ties.
In the interview, Rubio maintained that Zelenskyy is welcome back to the White House when he is “ready to make peace and he’s serious about peace.”