Through three years of wartime leadership, Ukraine’s president has mostly played weak hands wisely. But his approach has fallen flat with the Trump administration.

After Trump called Zelensky a “dictator” and began talks with Russia, even some of Zelensky’s harshest domestic critics have begun defending him.

The U.S. and Ukraine pushed divergent messages over the weekend, with Kyiv pressing for better terms to the mineral-rights deal sought by President Trump, while Washington urged Ukraine to swiftly accept the proposal already on the table.