Trump warns Zelensky ‘won’t be around very long’ after Ukrainian leader says end of war with Russia is ‘very far away’

( NYPost )

President Trump said Monday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “won’t be around very long” if he won’t make a peace deal with Russia — deepening the rift between the men after a shouting match Friday in the Oval Office.

Trump amped up the pressure on Zelensky after the Ukrainian leader said Sunday that an end to his country’s war with Russia was “very, very far away.”

“Everybody has to get into a room, so to speak, and we have to make a deal, and the deal can be made very fast,” Trump said at the White House.

“Now, maybe somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, and if somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long. That person will not be listened to very long. Because I believe that Russia wants to make a deal. I believe, certainly the people of Ukraine want to make a deal.”

The president added that “I want all of those young people to stop being killed — they’re being killed by the thousands every single week” before saying that Zelensky should be “more appreciative” of US support, “because this country has stuck with them through thick and thin.”

Hours earlier, Trump trashed Zelensky on Truth Social for saying that the war won’t be over anytime soon.

“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy [sic], and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump wrote.

“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy [sic], stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S. – Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?”

Zelensky scrambled Monday to clarify his downbeat assessment, tweeting that “[p]eace is needed as soon as possible” and that “[i]t is very important that we try to make our diplomacy really substantive to end this war the soonest [sic] possible.”

The latest back-and-forth comes as further US support for Ukraine’s defense is in doubt following the stunning public spat triggered by heated words between Kyiv’s leader and Vice President JD Vance.

“You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out, and if we’re out, you’ll fight it out,” Trump said at one point during the exchange on Friday. “I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.”

Trump and Zelensky had been due to sign a mineral-rights framework deal that would have given America a stake in Ukrainian rare earth elements, but the pact was left unsigned and the visiting leader instead was told to leave early.

National security adviser Mike Waltz said Sunday that Zelensky’s conduct in the Oval Office was an “insult” and that officials determined the summit could not be salvaged. 

Trump wrote afterward on Truth Social that his counterpart could “come back when he is ready for Peace.”

The mining deal was promoted by Trump as a way for the US to recoup hundreds of billions in wartime aid and as a way of effectively granting Ukraine security guarantees through the presence of American personnel on the ground.

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also visited the White House last week and discussed their plans to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine after fighting ended to guard against further aggression by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump and Zelensky previously exchanged harsh words following the Republican’s return to the White House on Jan. 20.

The American president ripped Zelensky on Feb. 19 as a “dictator without elections” and claimed he had a 4% approval rating in his home country — after the Ukrainian president waffled on the rare-earth framework and complained about US and Russian diplomats meeting in Saudi Arabia without him.

Zelensky had said that Trump was “living in a disinformation space” after the president said Ukraine had “started” the three-year-old war.