Just In: Zelensky says spat with Trump was ‘not good’ but relationship can be salvaged…..Read More

Volodymyr Zelensky has clashed with Donald Trump and JD Vance in an extraordinary exchange in the Oval Office – Watch the video at the top of this page

Zelensky was told to leave the White House and a planned news conference was abruptly cancelled

During the clash, the US president told his Ukrainian counterpart to be “thankful” and accused him of “gambling with World War Three”

Zelensky said there should be “no compromises” with Vladimir Putin

Speaking with Fox News, Zelensky said the spat with the US president was “not good for both sides” but he thinks the relationship can go forward

Keir Starmer has spoken with both Trump and Zelensky, a spokeswoman said, adding that he “retains unwavering support for Ukraine”

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine just over three years ago.

On 24 February 2022, 200,000 Russian soldiers entered the country – with President Vladimir Putin claiming at the time that he would take the capital of Kyiv in a matter of days.

Putin has repeatedly claimed that the “special military operation” was aimed at “denazifying” Ukraine and preventing Nato expansion.

In the years that have followed, millions of Ukrainians have fled and tens of thousands of military service members on both sides are believed to have been killed or injured.

Russia has taken swathes of Ukrainian territory in the east. In 2014, the year widely considered the true start of the conflict, Moscow annexed Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, after the overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president.

In response to the conflict, Western nations have targeted Russia’s oligarchs and businesses with sweeping sanctions, as well as supplying Ukraine with vital military and other aid.

Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, just appeared on CNN for an interview.

Speaking to the network’s programme “The Source”, Rubio describes the meeting earlier today between Presidents Donald Trump and Volodomyr Zelensky as a “fiasco” and said the Ukrainian leader should apologise.

“There was no need for him to go in there and become antagonistic,” Rubio says of Zelensky.

“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,” he says.

Rubio then adds: “You start to perceive that maybe Zelensky doesn’t want a peace deal. He says he does, but maybe he doesn’t.”

The relationship between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky was bad enough before the shouting match in the Oval Office.

President Trump had already called him a dictator and said Ukraine started the war – which is a lie.

Now the US-Ukraine alliance nurtured by Joe Biden is in pieces.

The public breakdown also signals a major crisis looming between European members of Nato and the US.

There will be many more doubts and questions about the US commitment to European security outside Ukraine. The biggest is whether President Trump would keep the promise his predecessor Harry Truman made in 1949 to treat an attack on a Nato ally as an attack on America.

Those concerns are based on what appears to be Trump’s determination to restore a strong relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He has put heavy pressure on Ukraine while offering Putin big concessions – that would have to be made by the Ukrainians.

The security of Ukraine is coming a poor second – and Europeans are worrying theirs is too.

The Ukrainian delegation here in Washington has gone quiet.

A planned appearance by President Zelensky at a think tank earlier this evening was cancelled at the last minute – after the buffet had already been served.

Ukrainian officials are still trying to process what happened today.

But there’s no doubt in government circles that this trip has gone terribly wrong.

A day that was meant to bring about a new chapter in US-Ukraine relations has ended with the two sides in uncharted territory.

US support has proven critical for Ukraine’s survival – President Zelensky said as much on Fox News this evening.

He heads to London on Saturday to meet UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, an important ally.

But Kyiv will be thinking hard about how to salvage damaged relations with their most important partner – the United States.