Zelensky leaves White House without signing minerals deal after shouting match

WASHINGTON - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was asked to leave the White House after a chaotic Oval Office confrontation with US President Donald Trump on Friday, and the signing of a minerals deal between the two sides was called off.

Following the tense shouting match in the Oval Office earlier in the day, Trump said that he wants an "immediate" ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, and that he believes his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is ready for a peace deal.

Trump warned Zelensky to make peace or lose American support.

"I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don't want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace," Trump posted a statement on the social platform Truth Social.

Zelensky said in a Fox News interview that Ukraine won't enter peace talks with Russia until it has security guarantees against another offensive.

After a spat with US Vice-President JD Vance in the Oval Office, who demanded the Ukrainian leader be thankful for Trump's effort to get his country out of its three-year conflict with Russia, Zelensky wrote on the social platform X: "Thank you America, thank you for your support, thank you for this visit. Thank you (President Trump), Congress, and the American people. Ukraine needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that."

What should have been a normal press pool spray before the high-stakes Trump-Zelensky bilateral meeting transpired into a fireworks-filled blowup aired on TV that no one would expect, all starting with an interjection by Vance.

"You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict," Vance told Zelensky during the unprecedented public confrontation, which later saw the three of them -- Trump and Vance versus Zelensky -- repeatedly race to talk over one another.