NEW YORK, March 1. /TASS/. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio believes that Vladimir Zelensky should apologize for what Rubio described as a "fiasco" at a meeting with US President Donald Trump.
Zelensky should "apologize for turning this thing into the fiasco for him," Rubio said in an interview with CNN. "There was no need for him to go in there and become antagonistic," he stressed, adding that "when you start talking about that aggressively <…> you’re not going to get people to the table."
"You start to perceive that maybe Zelensky doesn’t want a peace deal. He says he does, but maybe he doesn’t," Rubio noted.
Earlier on Friday, Zelensky met with Trump at the White House. Their televised exchange suddenly unraveled into a shouting match, with Trump scolding Zelensky for being disrespectful to the US, and Vice President JD Vance saying that Zelensky had never thanked the country for all the support provided to Kiev. A news conference scheduled to follow the meeting was canceled, and the Ukrainian delegation left the White House earlier than planned. Bilateral talks and the scheduled signing of the deal on Ukrainian mineral resources were thwarted.