There is an accusation that the confrontation between Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office on February 28th was staged by the Americans because Trump represented Russian interests. Stupid people see this scandal as confirmation of their claim that Trump is a Russian agent. To analyze the incident, however, it is not enough to look at the eight-minute video that is often circulated in the media. You can only grasp the dynamics of the situation if you watch the recording of the entire meeting (approx. 50 minutes). If necessary, you should read something. This applies not least to the information about the Minsk agreements.
Zelensky was supposed to sign an agreement with Trump on Ukrainian mineral resources that Kyiv and Washington had been fighting over for weeks. American special envoy Kellogg, who led negotiations on the matter in Kyiv, said after the scandal that he advised the Ukrainian president not to attend the meeting with the media in the Oval Office before the agreement was signed.
On the one hand, Zelensky wanted to publicly address the American guarantees for Ukraine, which the USA did not want to give Ukraine even under Biden (no joining to NATO in the foreseeable future). On the other hand, he wanted to publicly warn Trump about Putin because the Russian president had repeatedly rejected the agreements signed with Ukraine. But the American administration obviously does not want to be seen as a power that is negotiating with Russia from the same position as Ukraine. If one takes into account these conflicting expectations of the meeting with the media, it becomes clear that the situation had to escalate as soon as Zelensky spoke to the American president as if he represented a great power equivalent to the USA.
The Ukrainian president is still irreplaceable in his country. The fact that he plays about his strengths on the international stage doesn't change that. The problem, however, is that he is apparently unable to notice that he has crossed borders. As early as mid-June 2022, Biden smugly remarked that the word "thank you" would not have been out of place as Zelensky's response to an American aid package. It is also worth remembering that in 2023, in the wake of a conflict of interest with Polish farmers, the Ukrainian publicly accused Warsaw of working for Russia. He could perhaps afford this impudence towards a people who gave Ukraine several hundred tanks and combat vehicles at the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022, which is the central hub for supplies to Ukraine, not to mention the millions of refugees who were being supplied. Because the Ukrainians are fighting to ensure that Russia's troops are not at the Polish border. But the Americans are in a completely different situation.
Zelensky often acts unprofessionally, overestimating the power of words while disregarding reality. He doesn't seem to know that the new American administration wants to use the raw materials agreement to bind his country, which the USA believes it doesn't need for anything (Obama already said in 2015 that America has hardly any interests in Ukraine). When Zelensky tried to lecture Trump and Vance in the Oval Office about what threat they would "feel" from Russia in the future, he angered the American president.
Because the reality is: Ukraine will survive neither militarily nor economically without massive support from the West. Ukraine's own strength is almost entirely made up of its people, who would hardly have any equipment without the West. Ukraine is running out of soldiers, as Vance Zelensky had to remind them. That's all.
But reality also includes the moral potential of the people attacked by Russian and North Korean bandits. Zelensky is now wasting this huge potential quite quickly. Even the German media, which are always ready to overlook his serious mistakes if they can only criticize Trump, don't help him. That's why they want to see the argument in the Oval Office as an American provocation.
What next?
Kyiv must find a way to apologize - and then hope that the US will continue to support Ukraine to the extent it wants. Kyiv cannot play Europe off against the USA, which Zelensky has apparently been betting on in recent weeks. Kyiv is too weak to make world politics as an independent actor. No loss of reality perception helps against this banal statement.
After all, Ukraine still has support in the West. There are countries in Europe that need an independent Ukraine. But they often act as if they don't know it. The more clearly the US reminds Kyiv of its place, the greater the chance that the Europeans will use their own cognitive abilities correctly.
