A resurfaced phone call with former President Joe Biden indicates Ukrainian President Zelenskyy may have always been a little greedy and ungrateful with the money from American taxpayers to fund his war with Russia.
“Months after war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, then-President Joe Biden had a fiery private phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” reports Fox News. Biden allegedly lost “his temper” and called on Ukraine’s Zelenskyy to “show a little more gratitude” towards the U.S. for its support, the 2022 phone call revealed.
“Biden had barely finished telling Zelenskyy that he had just greenlighted another $1 billion in U.S. military assistance for Ukraine when Zelenskyy started listing all the additional help he needed and wasn’t getting,” according to an NBC report published in November 2022, recounting a prior June 2022 call that Biden and Zelenskyy shared.
“Biden lost his temper, the people familiar with the call said. The American people were being quite generous, and his administration and the U.S. military were working hard to help Ukraine, he said, raising his voice, and Zelenskyy could show a little more gratitude,” the report continued.
The reported tense exchange on the phone came just months after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The pair’s relationship “only improved” following the phone call, Biden administration officials told NBC at the time.
Congress has appropriated $175 billion since 2022 for aid to Ukraine, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, though exact monetary figures on how much the U.S. has provided to Ukraine vary based on what is considered aid.
Total European assistance to Ukraine between January 2022 and December 2024 totals roughly $138.7 billion, according to German think tank the Kiel Institute. The U.S. contributed $119.7 billion during that same timeframe, Fox Digital previously reported.
Zelenskyy’s attitude was reminiscent of his behavior towards President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance and other administration officials in the White House on Friday. With respect to how much money the United States has given Ukraine to aid its fighting against Russia, Trump asserted, “the problem is, I’ve empowered you to be a tough guy, and I don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States.”
