A misunderstanding related to two very distinct gifts presented by Volodymyr Zelensky to Donald Trump may have inadvertently triggered the public disagreement between the two leaders.
The meeting at the White House quickly escalated into a dramatic scene that surprised the global community and significantly impacted the relationship between the United States and Ukraine, involving Zelensky, Trump, and Vice President JD Vance.
The incident last month led to the premature expulsion of Zelensky before he could grace the podium with Trump for the planned press briefing.
Zelensky, who has been actively trying to repair the damage and improve relations ever since, now suggests that a different gift he had in mind could have potentially set a much calmer tone from the beginning.
He had brought Trump the title belt of world heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk, a friend of the Ukraine president.
Zelensky had the belt on a table next to his right elbow and was going to hand it to Trump – a longtime fan of boxing and mixed martial arts – in front of the press.
Instead, he grabbed a folder of photographs showing the awful brutality of what his people had been through during the war with Russia.
US officials told Time that the pictures – which Trump called ‘tough stuff’ – turned the meeting for the worse, suggesting that Trump felt Zelensky was trying to shame or blame him for those injured people.
The Ukraine president said that he simply wanted to make an emotional appeal to Trump.
‘He has family, loved ones, children. He has to feel the things that every person feels. What I wanted to show were my values,’ Zelensky explained.
‘But then, well, the conversation went in another direction.’
Zelensky admitted he left Usyk’s belt on the table where he’d placed it in the Oval Office as he left and was unsure what had happened to it.
‘Maybe it’s still sitting there,’ he quipped.
A White House source told Time that a staffer eventually picked up the belt and put it in Trump’s private dining room with other gifts he’s been presented.
He suggested that the whole blowup could be summed up very simply: ‘In that moment there was the sense of not being allies.’
Elsewhere in the interview, Zelensky said: ‘I believe Russia has managed to influence some people on the White House team through information. Their signal to the Americans was that the Ukrainians do not want to end the war, and something should be done to force them.’
The reveal follows a meeting between Russian and US officials on a partial ceasefire in Ukraine ended after 12 hours of negotiations in Saudi Arabia, Russian state media said, as both sides in the conflict reported a wave of fresh attacks.
It came as a children’s hospital in the city of Sumy was hit by a Russian missile yesterday, leaving almost 90 people – including 17 children – injured.
The attack on a ‘densely populated residential area’ damaged apartments and an educational facility, the regional prosecutor’s office said. The city’s acting mayor earlier said a hospital had been affected.
Russian media meanwhile said two journalists and their driver were killed when their car was struck ‘in the zone of the special military operation’, using Moscow’s term for its full-scale offensive in Ukraine.
Trump is pushing for a rapid end to the three-year war and hopes the latest round of talks in the Saudi capital will pave the way for a breakthrough.
The Ukrainian negotiating team was staying in Riyadh for another day to meet with US representatives, a source in the delegation told Suspilne news, with another source also telling AFP a second meeting was likely — a sign that progress may have been made.
Russia’s state-run TASS news agency cited a source as saying that the meeting with the US had ended after ‘more than 12 hours of consultations’ and that a joint statement on the results would be published Tuesday.
At a previous round of talks this month in Jeddah – days after Zelensky’s White House dressing-down by Trump – Kyiv agreed to a US-proposed 30-day ceasefire that was subsequently rejected by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Officials are now studying a possible resumption of the Black Sea Initiative, an agreement that allowed millions of tons of grain and other food exports to be shipped from Ukraine’s ports.
‘The issue of the Black Sea Initiative and all aspects related to the renewal of this initiative is on the agenda today,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in his daily briefing.
‘This was President Trump’s proposal and President Putin agreed to it. It was with this mandate that our delegation travelled to Riyadh.’
US-Ukraine and US-Russia talks were originally planned to take place simultaneously to enable shuttle diplomacy, with the United States going back and forth between the delegations, but they are now taking place one after the other.
Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who heads the Ukrainian team, said Sunday’s talks with the United States were ‘productive and focused’.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff has voiced optimism that any agreement would pave the way for a ‘full-on’ ceasefire.
‘I think you’re going to see in Saudi Arabia on Monday some real progress, particularly as it affects a Black Sea ceasefire on ships between both countries,’ he told Fox News.
‘And from that you’ll naturally gravitate to a full-on shooting ceasefire.’
The Kremlin has downplayed expectations of a rapid resolution.
‘We are only at the beginning of this path,’ Peskov told Russian state TV on Sunday, adding: ‘There are difficult negotiations ahead.’
When Putin, in a lengthy phone call with Trump, rebuffed the joint US-Ukrainian call for a full and immediate 30-day pause, he proposed instead a halt in attacks on energy facilities.
