The images of this February 28, live on televisions around the world, had dismayed the European allies of the United States and Ukraine and marked a turning point in relations between Washington and kyiv, after the unwavering support of the presidency of Joe Biden.
In this small confined space of the White House, which the press has renamed from the “Bureau of the Ambuscades”, Donald Trump and his vice-president JD VANCE had died the Ukrainian head of state by accusing him of “lack respect” and for not having “said once thank you” for the dozens of billions of dollars of military aid from the United States.
Six months later, coming back on Friday evening from his summit in Alaska with his Russian counterpart, the American president invited Mr. Zelensky to the oval office on Monday afternoon. So, to avoid this time any diplomatic misstep and to offend the 79-year-old billionaire, the Ukrainian forties took the lead on Saturday: he declared himself “grateful for the invitation” at the White House.
An orchestrated maneuver
According to a source from the CNN channel, JD Vance, who launched the charge against Mr. Zelensky on February 28 in the Oval Office, in what could be considered an orchestrated maneuver, will attend Monday to meet in this little lair of the American presidency known around the world thanks to television and the cinema.
A European government source told the press on Sunday that the Ukrainian President should speak first head-on with his American counterpart. The two men should then be joined by the main European leaders announced in force in Washington to block their ally at war against Russia for three and a half years.
The Ukrainian president will therefore not be alone. Unlike February 28, when his visit turned short. The Ukrainian leader had hastily left the White House, after being abused and verbally attacked by Donald Trump and JD Vance, accusing him of “playing with the third world war” and of lacking “gratitude” towards the world’s leading power.
He left without having held their planned press conference alongside the American president and lunch. Donald Trump, who has since returned to power on January 20, compared to the chief of the Kremlin, had summoned Volodymyr Zelensky at the end of February to “come back when he is ready for peace”.
Towards a constructive dialogue?
But since their shattering altercation which had dismayed the American democratic opposition and the European powers, water has flowed under the bridges between the two men. Even if the former New York real estate tycoon has never made a mystery of the little personal proximity which he experiences with regard to the 47-year-old Ukrainian Comistian. Quite the opposite of the admiration that Donald Trump says to feel to Vladimir Putin, whom he welcomed with great fanfare and warmly on Friday in Alaska.
The American and Ukrainian heads of state, however, had rejected on April 26, during a tête-à-tête in the Vatican, the faces leaning towards each other, seated on two chairs placed in the gigantic Saint-Pierre basilica of Rome, on the fringes of the funeral of Pope Francis. “The best conversations with President Trump,” said Volodymyr Zelensky.
And on May 18, still in Rome, he revised the vice-president JD Vance, the two forties sporting a broad smile during the interviews of their delegations.
