Trump’s view of Zelenskyy improves while verbal criticism of Putin grows - ex-Ukrainian PM

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, head of the Kyiv Security Forum and Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2014 to 2016, shared this opinion on Espreso TV.

"We have excellent dynamics in Trump's relationship with Zelenskyy, because he started out saying that Zelenskyy was a dictator, and now Donald Trump says that, in principle, he has some affection for Zelenskyy. It seems to me that at the summit — I was in The Hague and actually saw it all not just on TV — it appears that Zelenskyy took the right approach in how to deal with Trump. This is, one can say, the only correct tactic in the short term. This tactic was also used by Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Emmanuel Macron (although it didn’t save Macron from harsh criticism from Trump a week ago), and directly by Mark Rutte. He has been the longest-serving prime minister in Dutch history. He’s a classic political number one, a survivor in the Dutch political elite. So, regarding Trump’s attitude toward Zelenskyy and Ukraine, it has definitely improved," he said.

At the same time, Arseniy Yatsenyuk believes that, when it comes to U.S. President Donald Trump’s attitude toward Russian leader Putin and Russia, it has worsened, at least verbally and emotionally, but not in actions.

“When it comes to actions, we will see that, unfortunately, this is a zugzwang. We have not moved even one millimeter from the position we were in at the moment of Trump’s inauguration. Moreover, the situation has even somewhat worsened because there were high expectations among certain parts of the Ukrainian population and even some Western elites. The expectation was that this would happen not in 24 hours, but at least within 2–4 days, or if not 2–4 days, then at least 24 days. But this did not happen, and objectively, I understood that for such forecasts to come true, it’s not enough to have tools — you also need a very clear plan on how to implement them, understanding the consequences and the purpose. Donald Trump had a completely different approach at that time. I hope it is now diminishing, but this still doesn’t solve the problem by far,” added the head of the Kyiv Security Forum.

• U.S. President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on June 25 during the NATO summit in The Hague.