Ukrainians rally around Zelenskyy as defender of Ukraine's interests after Oval Office blowout

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pauses during a interview with Bret Baier during a taping of FOX News Channel's Special Report with Bret Baier in Washington, Friday, Feb. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Soon after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left the White House on Friday after an astonishing Oval Office blowout with President Donald Trump, Ukrainians rallied around Zelenskyy as a defender of his country’s interests.

The shouting match that unfolded in the final minutes of the highly anticipated meeting between the two leaders seemed to dash, at least for now, Ukrainian hopes that the United States could be locked in as a reliable partner in helping fend off, and conclude, Russia’s three-year onslaught.

The exchange, which saw a frustrated Zelenskyy lectured by Trump and Vice President JD Vance over what they saw as his lack of gratitude for previous U.S. support, delighted officials in Moscow, who saw it as a final breakdown in relations between Washington and the Ukrainian leader.

‘Zelenskyy fought like a lion’

But many Ukrainians on Friday seemed unfazed by the blowout between Zelenskyy and Trump, expressing a sense that the Ukrainian leader had stood up for their country’s dignity and interests by firmly maintaining his stance in the face of chiding from some of the world’s most powerful men.

Nataliia Serhiienko, 67, a retiree in Kyiv, said she thinks Ukrainians approve of their president’s performance in Washington, “because Zelenskyy fought like a lion.”

“They had a heated meeting, a very heated conversation,” she said. But Zelenskyy “was defending Ukraine’s interests.”

The meeting at the White House was meant to produce a bilateral agreement that would establish a joint investment fund for reconstructing Ukraine, a deal that was seen as a potential step toward bringing an end to the war and tying the two countries' economies together for years to come.

But as Zelenskyy and his team departed the White House at Trump’s request, the deal went unsigned, and Ukraine’s hopes for securing U.S. security backing seemed farther away than ever.

Yet as the Ukrainian leader was set to return to Kyiv empty handed, his support at home seemed undiminished.

Vitalyna Tarasova, a 43-year old English teacher in Kyiv and the widow of a Ukrainian soldier, told The Associated Press that Trump and Vance’s treatment of Zelenskyy amounted to humiliating “all the dead and all these children who have lost their parents” in the war-weary country.

“My husband was a military pilot. He burned alive, his plane was shot down… So yesterday they spat at him, at me, at my children, and it was very painful to watch,” she said.

Regional Ukrainian leader says president ‘held strong’

As two drones struck Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv on Friday night, the head of the region which sits on the border with Russia, Oleh Syniehubov, praised Zelenskyy. He said the president held strong to his insistence that no peace deal could be made without assurances for Ukraine’s security against future Russian aggression.

“Our leader, despite the pressure, stands firm in defending the interests of Ukraine and Ukrainians. … We need only a just peace with security guarantees,” Syniehubov said.

Kyiv resident Artem Vasyliev, 37, said he had seen “complete disrespect” from the United States in the Oval Office exchange, despite the fact that Ukraine “was the first country that stood up to Russia.”

“We are striving for democracy, and we are met with total disrespect, toward our warriors, our soldiers, and the people of our country,” said Vasyliev, a native of Russian-occupied Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.

Vasyliev criticized the U.S. president for what he said was a failure to recognize the human cost of Russia’s invasion, saying Trump “doesn’t understand that people are dying, that cities are being destroyed, people are suffering, mothers, children, soldiers.”

“He cannot understand this, he is just a businessman. For him, money is sacred,” he said.

Broad praise for Zelenskyy on social media

Ukrainian social media was awash in praise for Zelenskyy late Friday, with officials on the national, regional and local level chiming in to voice their support for their leader.

The outpouring resembled a recent surge in Ukrainian unity after Trump denigrated Zelenskyy by making false claims that Ukraine was led by a “dictator” who started the war with Russia — comments that led some of the Ukrainian president’s harshest critics to rally around him.

Oleksandr Prokudin, head of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, which was mostly occupied by Russia early in the war but later partially retaken by Ukrainian forces, said three years of war had hardened his countrymen to the ups and downs of the fight to survive.

“We know what pressure is, on the front lines, in politics, in daily struggle,” Prokudin said. ”It has made us stronger. It has made the president stronger. Determination is the force that drives us forward. And I am confident that we will endure this time as well.”

Trump’s administration cast the heated exchange with Zelenskyy as part of its “America First” policy and slammed the Ukrainian leader for a perceived lack of gratitude for U.S. assistance.

But Zelenskyy’s backers in Ukraine praised his commitment to acting in Ukraine’s national interest — even if it meant coming into conflict with the president of the United States.

“Unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s interests and devotion to his country. This is what we saw today in the United States. Support for the President of Ukraine,” Vice Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba wrote on Telegram Friday.

Not all of Ukraine’s political figures, however, were as full-throated in their praise for how the Oval Office meeting concluded. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that he hoped “that Ukraine does not lose the support of the United States, which is extremely important to us.”

“Today is not the time for emotions, from either side. We need to find common ground,” Klitschko wrote in a post on Telegram.

Russians predict bleak future for Ukrainian leader

In Moscow, a resident told the Associated Press that Zelenskyy “got what he deserved.”

“I think that he’s in for some very, very difficult times” at home, Sergei Boldarev argued. “I think the internal attacks on him will intensify.”

Russian state TV described the row between Trump and Zelenskyy as “a complete failure for Kyiv,” and speculated that Washington would soon stop military aid to Ukraine.

“Scandal, humiliation, shame and disaster - this is how Western journalists describe it. After a squabble in the Oval Office, the Ukrainian delegation was literally kicked out of the White House,” said Olga Armyakova, a presenter on the Rossiya 1 channel.

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Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova and Illia Novikov contributed to this report.

Justin Spike, The Associated Press