Zelensky showing Trump pictures of injured Ukrainian POWs instead of the gift he brought may have ignited tense Oval Office spat

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s fiery Oval Office exchange with President Trump may have been influenced by the “gift” he chose to give the command-in-chief during the highly televised meeting.Zelensky brought the championship belt of Oleksandr Usyk, the current world heavyweight boxing champion, during his February White House visit and planned to hand it over to Trump as a show of goodwill, he told Time Magazine on Monday in his first major interview since the Oval Office clash.The belt was next to him on a table when the sit down between the two world leaders and Vice President JD Vance began.However, Zelensky took a different approach at the last minute and didn’t grab the belt.He instead reached for a folder containing graphic images of Ukrainian prisoners of war after Russia released them to show Trump.“That’s tough stuff,” Trump told him as he looked over the images — some of which showed signs that the soldiers had been tortured.Those pictures were what turned their sit-down sour, unnamed US officials told Time Magazine.

They suggested that Trump felt Zelensky was trying to blame him for the injured soldiers in front of the cameras.Zelensky said that wasn’t his intention but does not regret showing Trump the images because he wanted to appeal to him on a human level.“He has family, loved ones, children.He has to feel the things that every person feels,” Zelensky said.“What I wanted to show were my values.

But then, well, the conversation went in another direction.”After showing him the pictures, the meeting sparked into a tense, heated argument between the US leaders and the Ukrainian president — during which Trump told him he was “gambling with World War III.”The conversation soured further when Vance said it was “disrespectful” for him to “come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media.”After the tense meeting ended, Zelensky hustled out of the West Wing and into a wait...