MOSCOW: Russia said Saturday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s trip to the United States had been a “failure,” after US President Donald Trump berated him in a stunning televised confrontation.
Zelensky planned to sign a minerals’ deal with the United States during the visit, but it ended in disaster when Trump and Vice President JD Vance accused the Ukrainian leader of being “disrespectful” and admonished him in front of US and international media.
Kyiv had hoped the agreement would pave the way for security guarantees from Washington, as it fights the full-scale offensive Russia launched in 2022.
“The visit of the head of the neo-Nazi regime, V. Zelensky, to Washington on February 28 is a complete political and diplomatic failure of the Kyiv regime,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
Moscow often accuses Ukraine of harboring “neo-Nazism” and used that as a pretext to start its Ukraine offensive, an accusation that Western leaders and Kyiv call false and absurd.
“With his outrageously boorish behavior during his stay in Washington, Zelensky confirmed that he is the most dangerous threat to the world community as an irresponsible warmonger,” Zakharova said.
Accusing Zelensky of being “obsessed” with continuing the fighting, Zakharova added that Russia’s military goals in Ukraine were “unchanging.”
Moscow has been gaining ground on the battlefield for over a year, pressing their advantage against Ukraine’s overstretched and outgunned army.
Russia says Zelensky trip to US was ‘complete failure’
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Russia says Zelensky trip to US was ‘complete failure’
- “The visit of the head of the neo-Nazi regime, V. Zelensky, to Washington on February 28 is a complete political and diplomatic failure of the Kyiv regime,” Zakharova said
- Moscow often accuses Ukraine of harboring “neo-Nazism“
Rubio says technical talks with Denmark, Greenland officials over Arctic security have begun
- US Secretary of State on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland
WASHINGTON: Technical talks between the US, Denmark and Greenland over hatching an Arctic security deal are now underway, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland agreed to create a working group aimed at addressing differences with the US during a Washington meeting earlier this month with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio.
The group was created after President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for the US to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, in the name of countering threats from Russia and China — calls that Greenland, Denmark and European allies forcefully rejected.
“It begins today and it will be a regular process,” Rubio said of the working group, as he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We’re going to try to do it in a way that isn’t like a media circus every time these conversations happen, because we think that creates more flexibility on both sides to arrive at a positive outcome.”
The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday’s talks focused on “how we can address US concerns about security in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom.” Red lines refers to the sovereignty of Greenland.
Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of a NATO ally, has roiled US-European relations.
Trump this month announced he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after a “framework” for a deal over access to the mineral-rich island was reached, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of the agreement have emerged.
After stiff pushback from European allies to his Greenland rhetoric, Trump also announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that he would take off the table the possibility of using American military force to acquire Greenland.
The president backed off his tariff threats and softened his language after Wall Street suffered its biggest losses in months over concerns that Trump’s Greenland ambitions could spur a trade war and fundamentally rupture NATO, a 32-member transatlantic military alliance that’s been a linchpin of post-World War II security.
Rubio on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland.
“We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but I think we’re going to wind up in a good place, and I think you’ll hear the same from our colleagues in Europe very shortly,” Rubio said.
Rubio during Wednesday’s hearing also had a pointed exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, about Trump repeatedly referring to Greenland as Iceland while at Davos.
“Yeah, he meant to say Greenland, but I think we’re all familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles,” Rubio said in responding to Kaine’s questions about Trump’s flub — taking a veiled dig at former President Joe Biden. “We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
