Moments after the chaotic Oval Office press event between Presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, I thought I heard a collective sigh of relief rise above the Kyiv skyline.
“There is some good news: they didn’t fight,” was Ukrainian MP Yaroslav Zelezhnyak’s reaction on X.
A head-on collision along the lines of the February Oval Office shouting match had been averted.
“I expected much worse,” another MP, Oleksandr Merezhko, told CNN. “The tone has changed. Trump wasn’t negative. The impression is that the presidents have gotten used to each other.”
Maryan Zablotsky, another parliament member and deputy head of the parliamentary US-Ukraine group, said, “I’m very impressed by the support of our European partners. They all gathered so quickly. Some interrupted their vacations.”
This is all in sharp contrast with the dark mood in the aftermath of the Alaska summit.
After witnessing the red carpet rolled out for Russian President Vladimir Putin last Friday; the jet flyover; the ride in the presidential limousine, many Ukrainians feared the American president’s bromance with the wily old KGB agent had reignited.
Add to that the angry early Monday morning Truth Social posts by Trump – in which he claimed Zelensky could “end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight” – followed soon after by another post blasting the so-called “fake media’s” coverage of his Ukraine peace efforts, and it seemed the American leader was in an ominously sour mood in the hours before the meeting.
But when Trump emerged from the White House and greeted Zelensky with a broad smile and a hearty handshake, the dark cloud of dread suddenly vanished. In the rather chaotic encounter with journalists in the Oval Office, both Trump and Zelensky avoided stepping on any rhetorical land mines. All was good.
It speaks volumes that with this US administration the optics of such events are the focus of so much attention.
As far as substance goes, however, there are still more questions than answers.
“How can you negotiate peace without a truce, without a ceasefire, when the situation on the front line is changing?” asked Merezhko. “If the situation is changing, it’s difficult to negotiate.”
Overnight Thursday Russia fired more than 140 drones, and three ballistic missiles, at Ukraine – killing at least 10 people, including an 18-month-old baby and a 15-year-old boy.
A peace agreement still seems very far away from Kyiv.
Earlier Monday, CNN attended a funeral for David Chichkan, a popular Kyiv artist-turned-soldier, killed by a Russian drone earlier this month on the eastern front.
Hundreds of friends, relatives, admirers, and fellow soldiers took a knee as his coffin was slowly carried onto Independence Square, Ukrainian and army flags fluttered in the cool morning breeze. Mourners embraced one another, some quietly weeping.
There, we heard only frustration and resentment toward an American administration seen as fickle and unreliable.
“After thousands of people have died in this war, it feels like we’re just being sold out now,” said mourner Oleksandra Grygorenko. Like so many here, she is repelled at the suggestion that the cost of peace with Russia could be the loss of large chunks of Ukrainian land.
Having watched the events in the White House, front line veteran Maria Berlinska said, “In essence, we are being offered temporary peace at the cost of our interests. Give up your land, hand over millions of people in the occupied territories to Russia, and then maybe you’ll get a long respite.”
The next step is a summit involving Trump, Putin and Zelensky. It was floated that perhaps it could happen by Friday. Previous attempts to coax Putin to the table have failed. Zelensky says he’s ready to meet. Will it even happen?
And hovering over the entire Trump-led diplomatic push to end the war is the worry that the quixotic American president will change his mind yet again.
Journalist Kristina Berdynskykh put it this way: “I have a prediction: Everything will go great at the White House. Between Zelensky and Trump. Between Trump and the Europeans. Between Zelensky, Trump, and the Europeans. And then Trump will call Putin, and everything will change a hundred times again.”
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