Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it’s a “pity” that he was not invited to join Donald Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska last month, declaring that the U.S. president gave the Russian dictator “what he wanted.” (Watch video below)
In an interview with ABC News’ Martha Raddatz in Ukraine broadcast on Sunday, Zelenskyy said the Anchorage summit on Aug. 15 afforded an opportunity to Putin to show the world that he is welcomed on U.S. soil.
“It’s a pity that Ukraine was not there, because I think that President Trump gave Putin what he wanted,” Zelenskyy said. “Putin doesn’t want to meet with me, but he wants very much to meet with the president of the United States, to show everybody video and images that he’s there.”
Trump has previously expressed frustration at criticism of his decision to afford Putin the meeting. While Trump literally rolled out the carpet for Putin and invited the Russian leader to ride with him in the Beast, the armored presidential limousine, the U.S. president still insisted that it “actually, it was very hard for President Putin to do so.”
Putin recently claimed that he would be happy to meet Zelenskyy for peace negotiations in Moscow, an offer that was predictably swiftly rebuffed by Ukrainian officials.
