As Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy and his delegation landed in Florida ahead of his meeting with US President Donald Trump, the latter’s “unusual” gesture has had the Russian media mocking the meet up.
Trump chose to spend the day before the crucial meeting playing golf rather than on diplomatic preparations, according to the Russian media RIA Novosti. The US President spent nearly the entire day on the course and returned to his Mar-a-Lago residence only around 4 pm in the evening.
Trump arrived in Florida on December 20 and has played golf every day since then, except for December 25, the day of Christmas. “Is golf more important than war? Trump took up golf before meeting with Zelenskyy,” questioned Russian media.
It also highlighted how the White House rescheduled its meeting. New details about Trump's Sunday schedule were released, and the White House previously announced that the meeting with Zelenskyy would begin at 1:00 PM local time, but the recent news is that the talks will now begin two hours earlier. The reason for the rescheduling has not been disclosed.
As per reports, Zelenskyy was reportedly eager to meet with Trump during Thanksgiving in late November. However, Trump preferred his family's company to his, stating that contact with Zelenskyy would only take place if a settlement agreement was reached.
Trump also seems unenthusiastic about the meeting, giving a lukewarm response to Zelenskyy’s 20-point plan for peace. He appeared to hint that he was in no rush to endorse the Ukrainian leader’s proposal, stating: “He doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” Trump said. “So we’ll see what he’s got.”
Though Trump believes he could have a productive meeting this weekend, the US reportedly has been pushing Zelenskyy to move off his original demands, and Trump appeared to lose patience with the haggling. “I think it’s going to go good with him. I think it’s going to go good with [Vladimir] Putin,” Trump said, adding that he expects to speak with the Russian leader “soon, as much as I want.”
But an analyst has termed Trump’s gesture of holding a meeting during a holiday a political move. Political strategist Mikhail Sheitelman told Russian media that choosing this time in political life in the United States comes to a complete standstill was intentional.
‘Trump will hold a conversation with Zelenskyy and then claim that he has agreed on everything. Trump will then announce this publicly and then call Putin and ask him to sign the peace agreement and for the two sides to cease fire starting in the new year. Then Trump will go down in history with such a New Year's peace. He wouldn't have invited the Ukrainians just to agree on positions. I'm not ready to seriously believe that Trump will sit down with Zelenskyy to negotiate over Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. Will they only discuss that and who owns what percentage of the Zaporizhzhya NPP? Of course not. They'll sit down and talk about how to force Putin to sign it now," Sheitelman believes.