TRENDING NEWS: “Trump fires Ukraine president Zelenskyy says he’s arrogant and ungrateful. Trump says if not for US government Ukraine would have been 6urnt down by Russia” …See more

Trump fires Ukraine president Zelenskyy says he’s arrogant and ungrateful. Trump says if not for US government Ukraine would have been 6urnt down by Russia

After an extraordinary clash with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in front of the world’s media last night, Donald Trump mocked the Ukrainian leader as he boarded his plane to Mar a Lago, calling him a “big shot”. Listen to The World podcast on their wild White House meeting as you scroll.

It appears that Volodymyr Zelenskyy was “set up” by the White House team, the former British ambassador to Ukraine has told Sky’s Anna Jones.

Simon Smith said he had never seen anything like the exchange he witnessed between the two leaders yesterday.

“Zelenskyy has taken a lot of punishment and has gone through a lot wit heroic resilience,” he said.

“To be subjected to this sort of torture in the White House session was quote astonishing.”

The former ambassador went on to say he thought Zelenskyy was “set up”.

“He looked very much on his own while the White House team piled into him,” he said.

“It showed just how deep Trump’s resentment of him still is. That goes back to Trump’s feeling that Zelenskyy didn’t help him during his first term.

“Also Trump has been keen to move fast on the conflict and Zelenskyy is infuriating him by raising objections to that plan – objections that are entirely reasonable.”

Smith said one of the most worrying signs that had seen was Trump thinking Vladimir Putin was his friend and not his NATO allies.
Smith said: “He has piled all the pressure on Ukraine and subjected European allies to a lot of pressure and Putin appears to have suffered no pressure whatsoever.

“There is a really worrying question here about where the US is going under Trump on this issue.”