US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US president is "very upset" with the behavior of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Rubio said this in an interview with journalist Catherine Herridge, quoted by the BBC.
Asked about Trump's comment that the Ukrainian president is a "dictator", Rubio said: "I think President Trump is very disappointed with President Zelensky, and rightly so".
Rubio cited reports of phone calls between Joe Biden and Zelensky, which allegedly showed the Ukrainian president starting to talk about "what we're not doing or what we're not getting" instead of "thanking Washington" for the aid.
"We care about the aid to Ukraine because it has implications for our allies and ultimately for the world. There has to be a certain level of appreciation for that. And when you don't see that and you see him accusing the president of living in a world of misinformation, that's very, very counterproductive," Rubio noted. Trump, he said, is not the type of person who is "going to sit back and take it".
Rubio also said he himself was personally upset by Zelensky's behavior after a conversation with him and the US vice president about the agreement to share Ukraine's mineral resources. According to Rubio, Zelensky agreed to conclude this agreement, having prepared a legislative basis for it, and two days later announced that he was abandoning the deal.
Commenting on the negotiations between the United States and Russia, Rubio recalled that even at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the USSR maintained contact. He noted that he was "not a fan of most of what Vladimir Putin has done," but it is still necessary to talk to Russia because it is a global power.
According to Rubio, the meeting with the Russian delegation in Riyadh was, among other things, a test of whether Moscow is committed to ending the war. "Now it may turn out that they don't want to end the war. I don't know. We'll find out. But for that to happen, we need a process," Rubio said.
The talks did not discuss territorial issues or the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions; the meeting had "another purpose," the head of the US State Department said.