When the secretary of the treasury, Scott Bessent, traveled to Kyiv this month, he wanted President Volodymyr Zelensky to sign an agreement ceding mineral rights to the United States, delivering a quick win for the Trump administration.
But Mr. Zelensky had an ask of his own: a meeting with President Trump, to finalize a deal he hoped would ensure continued American support. “I hope that in the near future,” he said, “the document will be ready, and we can sign it during a meeting with President Trump.”
Through the crucible of three years of wartime leadership, Mr. Zelensky has mostly played weak hands wisely, like when he popped out of a bunker while his capital was bombed early in the war to film selfie videos rallying his nation and the world to resist. His showmanship also paid off in talks that kept billions of dollars worth of weapons and ammunition coming to his military.
But his approach to the Trump administration has fallen flat with the White House, engendering not empathy but hostility from the American president. His request for a presidential meeting flopped, becoming the latest example of a dramatic personal style that was once integral to his nation’s struggle but now looks more like a monkey wrench in dealing with the Trump administration.
It is hotly debated in Ukraine whether Mr. Zelensky erred in his messaging by responding to insults from Mr. Trump with a few snipes of his own, rather than diplomatically navigating the U.S. president’s attacks. Though Mr. Trump’s claim that Ukraine started the war with Russia was clearly false, Mr. Zelensky infuriated him by publicly correcting the record and claiming the American president was trapped in a “web of disinformation” peddled by the Kremlin.
Was his response a necessary defense of national interests? Or a misstep in dealing with an empowered leader who broaches no criticism and essentially holds Ukraine’s fate in his hands?
“If you are a statesman, you should think first about your country and not your ego,” said Kostiantyn Yelisieiev, a former diplomat and an architect of the playbook used by the former Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, for relations with Mr. Trump.
That approach was characterized by offers of business deals to U.S. companies and responding to Mr. Trump’s criticism of Ukraine with dry, bureaucratic posts on a foreign ministry website.
“It is not a good idea to criticize the leader of any nation, and particularly the leader of a nation doing the utmost to help you,” Mr. Yelisieiev said.
Many Ukrainians have cheered Mr. Zelensky for standing up to Mr. Trump, even if the personal enmity has become an impediment. On Sunday, Mr. Zelensky said he would step down as president if doing so would bring peace to Ukraine, though it was unclear if he was seriously considering that option.
Mr. Zelensky has received advice from alarmed European leaders to avoid escalation, including in a phone call last week with Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda.
“I suggested to President Zelensky to remain committed to the course of calm and constructive cooperation with President Donald Trump,” Mr. Duda wrote on X after the call. Of the American leader he said: “I have no doubt that President Trump is guided by a deep sense of responsibility for global stability and peace.”
Mr. Zelensky’s style has rankled before. In visits to Western capitals to drum up more aid for Ukraine, he lectured leaders to the point of annoyance. The U.K. defense secretary, Ben Wallace, at one point responded that “like it or not, people want to see a bit of gratitude.” And the Ukrainian president has frustrated American military leaders by ignoring their advice on battlefield strategy.
Now, with the future of American military aid and backing in any potential peace talks on the line, it threatens to pose a far bigger problem.
Over the past two weeks, Mr. Zelensky has declined to sign the minerals deal. and said he would not accept any outcome of Mr. Trump’s negotiations if Ukraine were not represented. He also has been pursuing diplomatic efforts to shore up European support.
But even backers in Ukraine of this diplomatic strategy say Mr. Zelensky’s showmanship is an issue.
Rather than once laying out Ukraine’s position, Mr. Zelensky reiterated at a security conference in Munich, a news conference in Turkey’s capital and two news conferences in Kyiv that he would reject Mr. Trump’s negotiations if they exclude Ukraine.
The constant public insistence on Ukrainian involvement has irritated Mr. Trump. “He’s been at a meetings for three years, and nothing got done,” Mr. Trump said on Fox News Radio on Friday. “So, I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings, to be honest with you.”
But the American leader often uses threats and strong-arm tactics as a way of driving things forward — and Mr. Trump may ultimately be fine having Mr. Zelensky involved in the process.
On Sunday, rather than dial down his rhetoric as some European leaders had advised, Mr. Zelensky did not back away from his earlier comment that Mr. Trump is surrounded by Russian “disinformation” about the war.
He pointed to efforts by Mr. Trump to inflate the amount of aid Washington has given to Ukraine. And Mr. Zelensky lingered over Mr. Trump’s belittling assertion that the Ukrainian leader has only a 4 percent approval rating — debunking the claim in what critics say was an unwise war of words.
This is not Ukraine’s first run-in with Mr. Trump. During Mr. Trump’s first term, Ukraine offered deals to buy coal and locomotives from Pennsylvania, handing him a public-relations win in creating jobs in an important electoral swing state. Ukrainian authorities also quietly shut down an investigation of under-the-table payments in Ukraine to Paul Manafort, who had been chairman of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. Mr. Manafort was later convicted of financial crimes in the United States and was pardoned by Mr. Trump.
That approach through Mr. Trump’s first term saw Ukraine get permission to buy Javelin anti-tank missiles — the first lethal military assistance granted to the country — and the imposition of sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream natural gas pipelines.
In Ukraine today, many say they want a voice in talks that will shape their future — and that Mr. Zelensky’s demand is not just a sign of a stubborn character but a broadly endorsed position in the country. There is little appetite for allowing Mr. Trump’s negotiating team to trade on the army’s achievements in fighting Russia to a near standstill after three years of war — without engagement from Kyiv.
“Ukrainians want peace more than anyone else, but our struggle and the resistance of the Ukrainian military is the only reason why we still exist as a nation, and as a subject of international relations,” said Lt. Pavlo Velychko, who is fighting in northeastern Ukraine. “It was not Zelensky who decided what to want or not to want, but all Ukrainians who stood up to fight.”