Donald Trump’s reputation as deal-maker, central to his identity, ran smack into the reality of negotiating a complex peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. He did not appear up to the task.

Campaigning in Pennsylvania last September, JD Vance seemed to strike at an unlikely political foe: the besieged president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, who’d spent most of the previous two years being hailed by Western leaders as a hero.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is in no rush to end the war amid the fissures between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Angela Stent, a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia.

The Oval Office confrontation, a public clash with an ostensible ally, was without precedent in modern American history, Peter Baker writes. See a video of the astonishing meeting, and read excerpts from the exchange. Zelensky later told Fox News he believed he and Trump could salvage their relationship.