Impeachment, handshakes and that Oval Office meeting: Trump and Zelenskyy’s rocky history
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump will come face-to-face again shortly in Washington.
It’ll be the fourth time the two leaders have met in person this year, with each meeting unique in its own individual way.
Here’s a reminder of Trump and Zelenskyy’s up and down dealings from the day they first met…
Going back to the very beginning, the pair first spoke in April 2019 after Zelenskyy became Ukraine’s president, with Trump calling him to congratulate the former actor on an “incredible” election victory.
At the time, Republican allies were stoking allegations that Joe Biden – then the frontrunner to be the Democratic candidate in the 2020 election – had lobbied Ukraine to dismiss its top prosecutor to obstruct a probe into energy firm Burisma, which had Biden’s son Hunter as one of its board members.
In a phone call in July that year, the US president suggested that in exchange for future military support for Ukraine, Zelenskyy should help launch an investigation into Hunter.
That call formed the basis for Trump’s first impeachment by the Democratic-controlled House in December 2019 on abuse of power and obstruction of justice charges.
Trump was later acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate.
After they first met face-to-face at the United Nations General Assembly in September, Zelenskyy said there was “no blackmail” involved in the phone call.
In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, with Trump now out of office, he condemned the war as “appalling”.
He added he was praying for Ukrainians, and singled out Zelenskyy as “brave” for staying in Kyiv.
But as the 2024 election approached, Trump claimed he would be able to stop the war in 24 hours.
Doubting the claims, Zelenskyy invited Trump to Ukraine during an interview with Sky News’ US partner network, NBC News, in November 2023.
Trump and Zelenskyy then met face-to-face in September 2024, this time at Trump Tower in New York, where they discussed ending the war.
After Trump returned to office in January this year, he met with a Russian delegation in Saudi Arabia, prompting anger from Ukrainian officials.
In turn, the US president called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections” and said he “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left”.
The two leaders met face to face again at the White House in February – a notorious occasion cut short due to a clash in the Oval Office.
The next month saw Zelenskyy agree to a minerals deal worth $500bn (£394bn) in potential revenue and describe the White House meeting as “regrettable”.
Trump later said he and Zelenskyy were “very much on track,” before the pair met in person again at the funeral of Pope Francis on 26 April in the Vatican.
Since then, Trump has grown more critical of Russia for its ongoing attacks on civilians in Ukraine.
The US leader has resumed military aid (albeit paid for by European partners) to Ukraine in recent months, and threatened Moscow with sanctions.
But he also agreed to last week’s Alaska meeting with Putin, which critics said gave the Russian leader a red-carpet reward for his actions.
