Ukrainian President Voldy Mir Zelensky's fiery oval office exchange with President Trump may have been influenced by the “gift” he chose during a highly aired meeting.
Zelensky was scheduled to bring in the championship belt of current world heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk during his visit to the White House in February, handing over to Trump as a well-meaning show. Time Magazine Monday in his first major interview since the oval office collided.
The belt was next to him as he sat between two world leaders and Vice President J.D. Vance.
However, Zelensky took a different approach at the last minute and didn't grab the belt.
He instead reached for a folder containing graphic images of Ukrainian prisoners after Russia released them to show them Trump.
“That's difficult,” Trump told him as he looked around the image. Some of them showed signs that the soldiers had been tortured.
These photos changed their sit-in hardening, an unnamed US official told Time Magazine. They suggested that Trump felt he was trying to blame him for the injured soldier in front of the camera.
Zelensky said that wasn't his intention, but he doesn't regret showing Trump the image.
“He has family, loved ones, children. He has to feel what everyone feels,” Zelensky said.
“What I wanted to show was my values. But then the conversation went in a different direction.”
After showing him the photos, the meeting ignited a tense and heated debate between the US leader and the Ukrainian president. Meanwhile, Trump said he was “gambling with World War II.”
Vance got even more sour when he said it was “disrespectful” to “come to an oval office to try and litigate this in front of the American media.”
After the nervous meeting ended, Zelensky left the West Wing and ran into the car waiting 20 minutes after he arrived.
Zersky said he left the championship belt on an oval office table, but if Trump ever received a gift it would be a mystery to him too.
“Maybe it's still sitting there,” Zelensky said.
According to Time Magazine, White House staff grabbed the belt after the meeting and took it to Trump's private dining room.
Zelensky doesn't comment much about the meeting and is ready to leave the intense exchanges of the past.
“Let's leave that to history,” he said.
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff claimed earlier this month that Zelensky “admitted a letter” to Trump following the meeting.
Trump publicly revealed that he received letters from Zelensky in his annual presidential speech to Congress, but did not mention receiving an apology.
Despite a tense meeting with Trump last month, Zelensky said his American counterpart remains Ukraine's most powerful weapon against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He believes Trump and his administration are seeking a major victory on the world stage by ending the war.
“If he wants, Trump can narrow down concessions from the Russians, because he appears to be the only person Putin is afraid of,” he said.
Zelensky came to that conclusion after witnessing “the Russians were really scared” when the Trump administration threatened to sanction the Kremlin over the continued bombing of Ukrainian cities during recent peace talks.
After repeated meetings with Trump's team, Zelensky said it was clear that the administration wanted to win a diplomatic victory in the war.
“They have their own ambitions,” he said of the Trump team. “They see their role in history.”
