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| - Zelenskyy did say, "The U.S. will have to send their sons and daughters exactly the same way as we are sending [our] sons and daughters to war." However, he was talking about a hypothetical situation in which Ukraine losing the war against Russia would lead to a broader conflict resulting in Americans being pulled into fighting. He made this statement in February 2023, two years before the exchange with Trump took place.
Just days after U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in front of journalists at the White House in late February 2025, users shared another video of Zelenskyy widely on social media.
The Ukrainian leader was recorded saying the U.S. "will have to send their sons and daughters exactly the same way as we are sending [our] sons and daughters to war."
Many online shared the video as a way of criticizing Zelenskyy in the aftermath of the Oval Office confrontation. One post stated: "Oh, hell no. I've had it with this dude. Americans will NOT fight and die in Ukraine. This guy has lost his mind."
As Snopes has reported before, Zelenskyy was talking about a hypothetical situation in which Ukraine losing the war against Russia would lead to a broader conflict resulting in Americans being pulled into fighting. Furthermore, he made the above comments in February 2023, two years before the tense exchange with Trump and Vance. As such, we rate this claim as miscaptioned.
In our past reporting, we covered how on Feb. 24, 2023, Zelenskyy held a news conference in Kyiv marking one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. He answered questions from numerous journalists, and subsequent social media posts presented some of his answers in a misleading manner and without context.
The above X posts rely on a section of a longer statement. In the short clip, which is presented through an translator, Zelenskyy said, "The U.S. will have to send their sons and daughters exactly the same way as we are sending [our] sons and daughters to war, and they will have to fight, because it's NATO that we're talking about, and they will be dying. God forbid, because it's a horrible thing."
He said this in response to a question about U.S. opinion polls that showed a growing number of Americans thought their government was giving too much support to Ukraine. A journalist asked about his message to Americans with those concerns. Zelenskyy said (emphasis ours):
If they do not change their opinion, if they do not understand us, if they do not support Ukraine, they will lose NATO, they will lose the clout of the United States […] they will lose the support of the country with 40 millions of population, with millions of children. Are American children any different than ours? Don't Americans enjoy this the same things as we do? I don't think we're that different. I'm actually very happy that we have bipartisan support but we keep hearing those messages from time to time and they're dangerous.
[…]
Who wants the Third World War? Would anyone risk, would anyone be willing to accept that risk? The U.S is never going to give up on the NATO member states. If it happens so that Ukraine—due to various opinions and weakening and depleting of assistance—loses, [then] Russia is going to enter Baltic states, NATO member states, and then the U.S will have to send their sons and daughters, exactly the same way as we are sending [our] sons and daughters to war, and they will have to fight because it's NATO that we're talking about and they will be dying. God forbid, because it's a horrible thing. I wish peace and Ukrainian support to the United States.
Zelenskyy presented a hypothetical situation, warning of what could happen if the U.S. withdrew support and Ukraine lost the war, saying that Russia could invade other nations, and then American soldiers could be pulled into other battles. We noted in our past coverage that this prediction may not be accurate, and was largely serving Zelenskyy's political agenda of getting more help from the U.S.
The full exchange can be overhead at the 1:37:35 mark in the video below:
Ultimately, the selected clip above was miscaptioned and did not provide the correct picture of what Zelenskyy was saying. Zelenskyy was not calling on Americans to send their sons and daughters to war in Ukraine, but suggesting a possible future where if Ukraine fell, American soldiers would be pulled into other wars against Russian invasions. Furthermore, the clip was shared after Zelenskyy's February 2025 visit to the White House, suggesting his comments were recent, when in fact they were made two years earlier.
Since Trump and Vance's confrontation with Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian leader has said the incident was "regrettable" but he was ready to work under Trump's "strong leadership" for a lasting peace.
Snopes' archives contributed to this report.
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