Zelenskyy’s speech jolted some in the audience, many of whom had come expecting to hear about the progress of U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, or a readout of his meeting earlier in the day with Trump. The Ukrainian president mentioned those only in passing.
On the peace talks, Zelenskyy was brief: “Our teams are working every day. It is not simple. The documents to end the war are nearly ready.” On his hourlong sit-down with the U.S. president, he told reporters the “meeting was good thanks to the president, and thanks that he found time.”
The Ukrainian president has upbraided European leaders before — last year at Davos and notably at the Munich Security Summit, where, “he sounded like the leader of the free world,” according to former U.S. diplomat Michael McFaul.
But his tone seemed sharper this time, especially when he scorned them for dispatching “40 soldiers to Greenland, what is that for? What message does it send? What’s the message to Putin? Or to China? And even more importantly, what message does it send to Denmark?”
“30 or 40 soldiers will not protect anything,” he added.
The meeting between the two leaders had been in doubt right up until the morning. Ahead of the gathering, the Ukrainians struggled to get a slot for Zelenskyy on the U.S. president’s schedule, according to a senior Ukrainian official and a Republican foreign policy expert, who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity.