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President Donald Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to leave the White House Friday after the pair engaged in a testy exchange in the Oval Office. The unexpected collapse of the meeting has sent shockwaves through the world’s political and diplomatic spheres.
Scripps News speaks with Prof. Roman Sheremeta, a Ukrainian national and associate professor of economics at Case Western Reserve University, about what may come next.
“I had a tiny suspicion that this could be a turn of the events because even yesterday, as I was on national TV speaking in Ukraine, I told them that it’s possible that a deal is not going to go through because of some last minute things that could happen,” Sheremeta said.
“At the same time I was shocked, because I didn’t expect that this could happen. I was expecting that there could be some additional points of negotiation that could come up, but I did not expect that this would be an outright exchange that happened in the White House.”
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Sheremeta made clear that while U.S. arms and aid have helped Ukraine’s fight against Russia, Ukraine also spent time resisting Russia on its own early in the war.
He also pushed back against U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s criticisms of Zelenskyy, where Vance accused him of giving propaganda tours.
“I do think that there is hope for future” U.S.-Ukraine relations, Sheremeta said. “The pressure will mount on President Trump as well from here on because he promised to stop the war. The war will continue and more people will die, and he can blame and say ‘it’s all Ukraine’s fault, they don’t want to negotiate,’ but I don’t think that it’s even his best interests, or the interest of the United States. We want to stop Russia. We don’t want for Russia to be emboldened and take further steps where it will cost us significantly more not to support Ukraine than to support Ukraine now.”
Watch the full interview with Sheremeta in the video above.
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