Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump openly sparred at the White House on Friday during a meeting meant to finalize a deal on Ukraine's mineral resources and discuss a potential peace agreement with Russia.
"You're not acting at all thankful. It's not a nice thing," the U.S. president said.
"It's going to be very hard to do business like this," he added.
Trump told President Zelenskyy that Ukraine would have to make "compromises" in a truce with Moscow, while Zelenskyy insisted that there should be no concessions with Russia's "killer" leader.
"You can't do any deals without compromises. So certainly he's going to have to make some compromises, but hopefully they won't be as big as some people think," Trump said at a White House meeting.
But showing Trump pictures of war atrocities and referring to President Vladimir Putin, Zelenskyy said there should be "no compromises with a killer on our territory."
"Crazy Russians," he said, had deported Ukrainian children and committed war crimes during their three-year invasion of his country.
Despite the tension over who should make concessions in the search for an end to the war, Zelenskyy said, "I think President Trump is on our side."
He said that he would be speaking to the U.S. president about the "crucial" need for a so-called U.S. security "backstop" to any European deployments of peacekeepers monitoring an eventual truce.
"This is crucial, this is what we want to speak about, this is very important," he said.
Trump has alarmed Kyiv and European allies with his abrupt U-turn in U.S. policy, ending what had been full-throated support for Ukraine's attempt to defeat the Russian invasion and casting himself as a mediator between Putin and Zelenskyy.
Trump told Zelenskyy that a truce is "fairly close."
He also said that a deal he was set to sign with Zelenskyy allowing U.S. exploitation of Ukraine's natural resources would be "very fair."
The resources deal is intended to give the U.S. access to rare-earth and other critical minerals as part of an overall plan to help Ukraine recover after a truce.
Zelenskyy told Trump that he should visit his embattled nation. "You have to come and look.
Many Ukrainians fear that a hastily negotiated peace - especially one that makes too many concessions to Russian demands - would allow Moscow to rearm and consolidate its forces for a future invasion after current hostilities cease.
According to the preliminary economic agreement, seen by The Associated Press, the U.S. and Ukraine will establish a co-owned, jointly managed investment fund to which Ukraine will contribute 50% of future revenues from natural resources, including minerals, hydrocarbons and other extractable materials.
