![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/13270818-1024x683.jpg\")
\u201cYou see, I changed. You [did] not,\u201d Zelenskyy said to the journalist who scolded him in February for not wearing a suit. | Pool photo by Aaron Schwartz\/EPA<\/p>\nZelenskyy also presented Trump with a letter written by his wife Olena Zelenska to the U.S. first lady, expressing gratitude for Melania Trump\u2019s efforts to appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin to return 20,000 kidnapped Ukrainian children to their relatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me thank your wife. Because she sent a letter concerning our children, and my wife, the first lady of Ukraine, gave her the letter,\u201d Zelensky said as he handed the letter to Trump on Monday.<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy, for his part, didn\u2019t leave empty-handed: Trump recorded a video thanking Kartavtsev for the golf club, and gave Zelenskyy a symbolic set of keys to the White House, according to the Ukrainian president\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see, I changed. You [did] not,\u201d Zelenskyy said to the journalist who scolded him in February for not wearing a suit. | Pool photo by Aaron Schwartz\/EPA<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy\u2019s White House charm offensive came after a disastrous first meeting with Trump in the Oval Office in February, when the U.S. president and his deputy JD Vance berated the Ukrainian over his decision not to wear a suit, for correcting Trump, and for a perceived lack of gratitude for American support, among other things.<\/p>\n
Keen not to avoid a repeat of those humiliations, Zelenskyy arrived in the U.S. backed by a squad of European leaders<\/a> \u2014 and wearing a suit<\/a> (albeit with a military twist). The sartorial choice, which POLITICO first revealed, presented a compromise between Zelenskyy\u2019s insistence that he would not wear a traditional suit while leading a country at war, and his deference to his American hosts\u2019 preferences.<\/p>\n Zelenskyy made sure to repeatedly thank Trump as the two leaders addressed reporters and didn\u2019t argue when Trump again errantly claimed the U.S. has allocated $300 billion in aid to Ukraine. The U.S. spent a total of \u20ac114.63 billion helping Ukraine between Jan. 22, 2022 and June 30, 2025, according to the Kiel Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n Zelenskyy\u2019s efforts appear to have worked. <\/p>\n