Here is President Zelenskyy’s full statement expressing gratitude to the US…
We are very grateful to the United States for all the support. I’m thankful to President Trump, Congress for their bipartisan support, and American people. Ukrainians have always appreciated this support, especially during these three years of full-scale invasion.
America’s help has been vital in helping us survive, and I want to acknowledge that. Despite the tough dialogue, we remain strategic partners. But we need to be honest and direct with each other to truly understand our shared goals.
It’s crucial for us to have President Trump’s support. He wants to end the war, but no one wants peace more than we do. We are the ones living this war in Ukraine. It’s a fight for our freedom, for our very survival.
As President Reagan once said: ‘Peace is not just the absence of war.’ We’re talking about just and lasting peace – freedom, justice, and human rights for everyone. A ceasefire won’t work with Putin. He has broken ceasefires 25 times over the last 10 years. A real peace is the only solution.
We are ready to sign the minerals agreement, and it will be the first step toward security guarantees. But it’s not enough, and we need more than just that. A ceasefire without security guarantees is dangerous for Ukraine. We’ve been fighting for three years, and Ukrainian people need to know that America is on our side.
I cannot change Ukraine’s position on Russia. The Russians are killing us. Russia is the enemy, and that’s the reality we face. Ukraine wants peace, but it must be a just and lasting peace. For that, we need to be strong at the negotiation table. Peace can only come when we know we have security guarantees, when our army is strong, and our partners are with us.
We want peace. That’s why I came to the United States, and visited President Trump. The deal on minerals is just a first step toward security guarantees and getting closer to peace. Our situation is tough, but we can’t just stop fighting and not having guarantees that Putin will not return tomorrow.
It will be difficult without the US support. But we can’t lose our will, our freedom, or our people. We’ve seen how Russians came to our homes and killed many people. Nobody wants another wave of occupation. If we cannot be accepted to Nato, we need some clear structure of security guarantees from our allies in the US.
Europe is ready for contingencies and to help fund our large army. We also need the US role in defining security guarantees – what kind, what volume, and when. Once these guarantees are in place, we can talk with Russia, Europe, and the US about diplomacy. War alone is too long, and we don’t have enough weapons to push them out entirely.
When someone talks about losses, every single life matters. Russia invaded our homes, killed our people, and tried to erase us. This isn’t just about territories or numbers – it’s about real lives. That’s what we need everyone to understand.
I want the US to stand more firmly on our side. This is not just a war between our two countries; Russia brought this war on to our territory and into our homes. They are wrong because they disrespected our territorial integrity.
All Ukrainians want to hear a strong US position on our side. It’s understandable the US might look for dialogue with Putin. But the US has always spoken about ‘peace through strength’. And together we can take strong steps against Putin.
Our relationship with the American president is more than just two leaders; it’s a historic and solid bond between our peoples. That’s why I always begin with words of gratitude from our nation to the American nation.
American people helped save our people. Humans and human rights come first. We’re truly thankful. We want only strong relations with America, and I really hope we will have them.
Geneva Abdul
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the support of the US is crucial as he arrived in the UK to meet Keir Starmer after his clash with Donald Trump.
The Ukrainian president will meet the prime minister in Downing Street on Saturday afternoon before a defence summit of European leaders on Sunday.
Zelenskyy arrived in the UK on Saturday morning after the unprecedented public clash with Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, in the White House’s Oval Office on Friday. His plane, emblazoned with the Ukrainian flag, touched down at Stansted airport and was met by a convoy of cars.
Since Friday, leaders have been scrambling to mitigate the fallout from the diplomatic meltdown in Washington. The meeting had been set up to discuss a rare earth minerals deal in exchange for US support in Ukraine…
Read more:
Rachel Reeves insists UK will not choose between US and Ukraine
Speaking from Leicester’s King Power stadium on Saturday afternoon, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, told LBC: “This government is not going to choose between countries.”
We need to work with our allies and partners across the world and we’ll continue to do that. But Ukrainian people can know that this government, this country, stands fully behind the Ukrainian people.
We have committed £3bn a year for as long as it takes to support Ukraine, as recently passing legislation to enable frozen Russian assets, the profits on those, to be used to support Ukraine.
And the first tranche of that £3bn worth of funding will be unlocked in the next few days as a sign of our ongoing commitment to support the people of Ukraine.
Luke Harding
My colleague, Luke Harding, has reported on the reaction in Ukraine after the US president, Donald Trump, publicly lambasted his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy:
Ukrainians have rallied behind Volodymyr Zelenskyy after his mauling on Friday in the White House, and have accused Donald Trump and the US vice-president, JD Vance, of deliberately and cynically “starting a brawl”.
There was widespread support for Ukraine’s president at home and dismay at his car-crash encounter in the Oval Office. There was also praise for Zelenskyy’s insistence that a peace deal without security guarantees was meaningless, and that Russia could not be trusted …
The Ukrainian journalist and blogger Ilia Ponomorenko said even if Zelenskyy had sat in silence for 40 minutes Trump would have “found a reason to get offended” and started “a brawl anyway”. “You simply can’t win with people who don’t actually want a standard, successful meeting,” he told his 1.1 million followers on X.
He added: “We can talk endlessly about Ze’s missteps and diplomatic setbacks, but the reality is – under any circumstances – he was always going to be called a beggar, a war gambler pushing the world toward world war three, someone who doesn’t want peace, isn’t thankful enough.
“And, most importantly, someone standing between Trump and his sweet little deal with Putin – who has promised him oceans of gold in exchange for Ukraine”…
Read Luke’s full report here:
AFP provides some lines from the Russian foreign ministry statement on last night’s clash between Zelenskyy and Trump:
“The visit of the head of the neo-Nazi regime, V Zelenskyy, to Washington on 28 February is a complete political and diplomatic failure of the Kyiv regime,” the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said in the statement.
Moscow often accuses Ukraine of harbouring “neo-Nazism” and used that as a pretext to start its invasion. It’s an accusation that western leaders and Kyiv call false and absurd.
“With his outrageously boorish behaviour during his stay in Washington, Zelenskyy confirmed that he is the most dangerous threat to the world community as an irresponsible warmonger,” Zakharova said.
“Russia’s unchanging goals remain the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine, as well as the recognition of the existing realities on the ground.”
The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, criticised Donald Trump in unusually sharp terms for his behaviour during last night’s meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Oval Office.
“Diplomacy fails when negotiating partners are humiliated in front of the whole world,” Steinmeier told DPA, the German news agency, during a flight to Uruguay. “The scene in the White House yesterday took my breath away. I would never have believed that we would one day have to protect Ukraine from the USA.”
The UK must continue to work with both the US and Ukraine, Kemi Badenoch has said, according to the PA news agency.
The Conservative leader was asked if the offer of a second state visit to the UK for Trump should be rescinded.
Speaking during her first visit to Northern Ireland as Tory leader, Badenoch told broadcasters: “The state visit is from the king. He is the head of state and I think that is a matter for the royal family.”
She added:
We need to make sure that we continue to work with both our allies, both Ukraine and the US. We may disagree with the US on what happened yesterday but what is important now is how we move on from what happened yesterday.
That means focusing on the summit that the prime minister is going to be having tomorrow with European leaders.
Zelenskyy ‘obsessed’ with continuing war, Russia claims
The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington was Kyiv’s diplomatic failure, and that the Ukrainian president rejected peace, and was obsessed with continuing the war.
The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, says the fracas in the White House on Friday was “regrettable and will make Putin feel like the winner”.
In a post on X, Farage added: “But this is not the end of the story, far from it. A peace deal is essential, and Ukraine needs the right security guarantees.”
Trump and Zelenskyy took the headlines after their heated clash in the Oval Office on Friday. Still, the contribution of JD Vance, the vice-president, to the explosion of tempers was a significant development, say commentators.
The meeting was muddling along fairly amicably before Vance piped up to accuse the Ukrainian president of being “disrespectful” when Zelenskyy asked Vance to clarify what he meant when he mentioned diplomacy with Russia.
“I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country,” Vance said.
The US vice-president antagonised Zelenskyy again when he asked the president if he had “said ‘thank you’ once?” referring to the military support the US has provided over the past three years of war.
“You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict,” Vance snapped.
Vance’s outburst demonstrated his fierce loyalty to Trump and that, just like his boss, he is disposed to provocation and likely to conduct himself in an unorthodox manner in public.
“This was the flexing of JD Vance. Vance is different than Elon. For him to sit and take on Zelenskyy in front of Trump was a very big moment,” one US official, speaking anonymously, told Reuters. “He moved to support the president, and Trump loves it when people step out to do the confrontation that he usually does.”
Ukrainians, many of them hardened by three years of war, rallied around Volodymyr Zelenskyy but also expressed dismay about the future of US backing for Kyiv’s war effort as larger and better equipped Russian forces march across swathes of the east, Reuters reports.
“Trump and Putin are dividing up the world – that’s what I would say. I don’t know what will come of it,” said Kyiv resident Liudmyla Stetsevych, 47.
However, she and other Ukrainians interviewed by Reuters expressed hope that Ukraine’s allies in Europe would boost political and military support if the US dialled back its own.
“We are really very grateful to [the US] for the support we have received all this time and continue to receive, but our dignity and honour should come first,” said Alina Zhaivoronko, standing near a sea of small flags in central Kyiv commemorating Ukraine’s war dead.
“The Americans don’t know the real situation, what’s going on here,” said 54-year-old Ella Kazantseva, an east Ukraine native. “They don’t understand. Everything is beautiful for them.”
European leaders also leapt to Zelenskyy’s defence following the spat on Friday in an outpouring of support on social media.
