The key moments that have shaped Trump and Zelensky’s rocky relationship
Relations between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky have reached a new low after the US president tore up sanctions on Russia and struck a highly controversial deal to purchase Russian diesel.
The latest fracture followed months of careful positioning by the Ukrainian president and his allies in Europe to avoid upsetting Trump and the US abandoning the country altogether.
But with Ukraine facing another brutal winter of Russian strikes, Washington’s commitment to sharing vital intelligence and interceptor missiles is again in question.
And where Zelensky would once have tried to court the American president with open displays of praise and gratitude, this time he has stood his ground.
As US special envoy Steve Witkoff meets the Ukrainian president in Oslo in a bid to repair ties, The Independent looks back on the key moments that have shaped the rocky relationship between the two leaders.
Shortly after Zelensky was elected in 2019, and during Trump’s first term in office, the US president called his Ukrainian counterpart to discuss a ceasefire proposal over the illegal Russian annexation of Crimea.
In the now-infamous phone call, Trump asked Zelensky to “do us a favour” and investigate then-former vice president Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and the discredited theory that Kyiv colluded with the Democrats in the 2016 election to harm Trump.
That call later ultimately triggered the first impeachment case against Trump by the Democratic-controlled House in December 2019 on abuse of power and obstruction of justice charges. Zelensky later said Trump did not try to blackmail him, while Trump denied wrongdoing and described their interaction as a “perfect call”.
The timing of the July call, shortly after the United States froze nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine, prompted concern that Trump used taxpayer money approved by Congress as leverage for his personal political gain.
Trump was ultimately acquitted by the Senate in 2020.
In February 2022 Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was Moscow’s biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.
Trump, having by then been ousted from the White House, condemned the invasion and said he was praying for Ukrainians, after earlier in the week getting flak from Republicans for saying Putin’s attacks were “genius” and “pretty savvy”.
“The Russian attack on Ukraine is appalling. We are praying for the proud people of Ukraine. God bless them all,” Trump said, adding that he thought Zelensky was “brave” for staying in the capital.
Trump also began insisting that the “horrific disaster would never have happened if our election was not rigged and if I was the president”.
