Christian Esch
It’s the second day of the Munich Security Conference when the Ukrainian president and former actor Volodymyr Zelenskyy is forced to admit that he does not know the play in which he is now supposed to act. He is sitting in front of a wood-paneled wall facing journalists in a room in Munich’s Bayerischer Hof hotel, crammed between a chair and a bookshelf. There is a video of the February 15 briefing.
Zelenskyy has just been through one of the most difficult weeks of his life, and his tired face clearly reflects the setbacks he has experienced. He has had to absorb one blow after another, each time from the U.S. government.
First, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Brussels ruled out an American security guarantee for his country. Then, U.S. President Donald Trump held a long telephone conversation with Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin without Zelenskyy’s knowledge. And U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent presented a demand for Ukraine’s natural resources to compensate for past aid. In an interview with Fox News, Trump made Ukraine sound like a failed business deal: "They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday. But we're going to have all this money in there, and I say I want it back.”
On this Saturday evening in Munich, a journalist asks the Ukrainian president who will be participating in the peace talks that are set to begin in the coming days.
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