President Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine pulled out of a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Thursday, amid escalating tensions with the White House.
Zelensky welcomed Ret. Gen. Keith Kellogg to the Ukrainian presidential palace for a meeting, but the two would not hold a press conference, the Ukrainian president’s spokesman Serhii Nikiforov, told the Associated Press. Nikiforov said the cancellation was in accordance with U.S. wishes.
The cancelled press conference comes amid a tit-for-tat between Trump and Zelensky. Trump unleashed a tirade against Zelensky online on Wednesday, calling him a “dictator,” and blamed Ukraine for Russia’s three-year war against the country, which started when Moscow launched an unprovoked, full-scale invasion in Feb. 2022.
Trump’s vitriol against Zelensky came after the Ukrainian president dismissed an initial proposal from the U.S. calling for 50 percent ownership of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. When Trump suggested Ukraine was to blame for Russia’s invasion and cited false statistics of Zelensky’s approval rating as president, the Ukrainian leader criticized Trump as living in an misinformation bubble.
The escalating tensions come as Trump is reaching out to Russian President Vladimir Putin to rebuild U.S.-Russia ties, and tries to negotiate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The outreach is a break from the strategy of isolation initiated by the former Biden administration.
