Trump came out swinging against Zelensky in a social media post on Wednesday where he accused him of being an unpopular dictator who doesn’t want elections, manipulating America “into a war that couldn’t be won”, and possibly having stolen tens of billions of dollars’ worth of aid from it since 2022. This follows Zelensky accusing him of spewing “Russian disinformation” after Trump earlier claimed that the Ukrainian leader’s approval rating was just 4% when explaining why he won’t hold elections.
Tensions between these two have been brewing for quite a while already and can be traced back to how the Democrats exploited one of their phone calls from Trump’s first term as the pretext for impeaching him. Trump had called Zelensky to inquire about evidence that his government might have been in possession of proving the Biden family’s alleged corruption in Ukraine. That experience left Trump with a very poor but lasting impression of Ukraine in general and Zelensky in particular.
It was gradually reinforced as the Biden Administration openly allied with Zelensky’s throughout the course of the Ukrainian Conflict and even more rumors abounded about other corrupt deals. Credible speculation of misappropriated and even missing funds began to rile Trump as did the obviousness of those their mutual unwillingness to at least freeze hostilities with Russia. Everything became personal once Zelensky let himself be used as a campaign prop by the Democrats in Pennsylvania last September.
His response to Trump’s historic election approximately six weeks later was to try appealing to his ego with insincere praise and even buying him off by offering a vague deal over Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, which Kiev convinced Lindsey Graham over the summer are worth a whopping $10-12 trillion. Zelensky later rebuffed a draft deal from Trump that reports claimed “would amount to a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than reparations imposed on Germany at the Versailles Treaty” if accepted.
Bloomberg then reported earlier this week that Ukraine barely has any rare earth minerals to begin with, thus suggesting that Zelensky was trying to manipulate Trump into providing Ukraine more aid on the false pretext that the US could reap a huge return on its investment via these non-existent resources. To make matters even worse, this came shortly after Zelensky fearmongered on Monday that Ukraine can turn into Afghanistan 2.0 if Trump hastily ends this conflict too, which was meant to get under his skin.
That wasn’t all either since Zelensky had also authorized his forces to bomb partially US-owned oil infrastructure in Russia earlier that day, which came right before the first round of Russian–US talks on Ukraine that he then complained about being excluded from. Those remarks prompted Trump to declare how “disappointed” he was with Zelensky. Instead of shutting his mouth and frenziedly working behind the scenes to repair his troubled ties with Trump, Zelensky accused him of being in cahoots with Russia.
Vice President Vance swiftly warned Zelensky that “badmouthing” Trump will backfire while National Security Advisor Waltz lamented that those two leaders’ ties were “clearly going in the wrong direction.” As can be seen, their vicious rift is entirely due to Zelensky’s unbridled arrogance in thinking that he could manipulate deal-master Trump with false promises of rare earth riches and then inexplicably expecting that public insults will successfully bully him, which are both enormous errors of judgement.
Had Zelensky bit his tongue even after his Afghanistan quip on Monday, then he could have at least tried to claim ignorance of his military bombing partially US-owned oil infrastructure in Russia and blamed his advisors for misinforming him about Ukraine’s rare earth riches, but he dug himself a hole instead. Complaining about being excluded from the Russian-US talks, badmouthing Trump and implying abandonment by the US, and then accusing Trump of spewing “Russian disinformation” were mistakes.
Zelensky is ultimately his own man and must take responsibility for his actions. It’s unimportant who might have speculatively misadvised him since he still went along with what they could have suggested despite Trump’s reputation for never capitulating to those who pressure and especially insult him. Trump has been on the warpath since the inauguration and is politically neutralizing all of his enemies at home so Zelensky should have known better than to become Trump’s newest enemy abroad and risk his wrath.
It’s difficult to imagine any restoration of cordial working relations between Zelensky and Trump after what just happened. In fact, Trump might not even want to talk to Zelensky ever again anymore, but he might still have to as part of the peace process. The only way to avoid the awkwardness that this would entail would be if Zelensky either stepped down, was replaced upon finally holding the elections that he scandalously postponed last year, or was deposed through some other means.
In the interim, Trump might rely on his subordinates like Special Envoy Keith Kellogg to pass along messages between them from here on out unless in the unlikely scenario that Zelensky humiliates himself with a sincere apology and then agrees to do whatever Trump demands of him. Since that’s not foreseeable given his unbridled arrogance, which is arguably connected to the “god complex” that the Democrats and their European allies cultivated in him since early 2022, mediators will have to suffice.
Zelensky might not have much time left to decide what to do, however, since he’s already skating on thin ice given his objective unpopularity (which might not be as bad as Trump claimed but accounts for why he’s against holding elections) and his growing number of rivals at home. As the situation along the front worsens and ties with the US continue deteriorating, both at the personal and national levels, an inflection point might soon be reached whereby a regime change process of some sort is initiated.
Whether this takes the form of him resigning, finally holding elections (in which he might even agree not to run), being pressured to do either of the aforesaid by large-scale protests (which might take on contours of a US-backed Color Revolution), or is deposed through a coup is anyone’s guess. There’s also the possibility that nothing dramatic will happen but that seems improbable given the viciousness of his rift with Trump and the American leader’s vengeful disposition after all that he’s been put through.
For that reason, observers shouldn’t take Zelensky’s rule over Ukraine for granted since something might suddenly happen, whether it’s naturally occurring, the result of Trump ordering his intelligence services to “take care of” Zelensky, or a blend thereof in the case of US-backed protests or coup attempts. Vance will thus likely be vindicated in warning that Zelensky’s “badmouthing” of Trump will backfire. but it remains to be seen what form that’ll take and whether it’ll succeed in moving along the peace process.
