Zelensky sometimes irritated Biden

The former NATO Secretary General recalled an incident that occurred on the eve of the Alliance summit in June 2023.

It was then that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky publicly demanded from the bloc members clear formulations regarding Ukraine's prospects in NATO.

According to Stoltenberg, such categoricalness greatly irritated Biden.

What is important to understand is that the points regarding Ukraine in the final declaration were agreed upon with official Kyiv in advance.

So we were caught off guard by the events of the first day of the summit. On the way to Vilnius, Zelensky posted a harshly critical Twitter post against NATO. He called it "absurd" that the alliance had not provided a timetable for either Ukraine's invitation to NATO or its membership.

Jens Stoltenberg

NATO External Secretary

However, this outraged former American leader Joe Biden the most.

He didn't even hide his emotions, although he did it behind closed doors:

Biden, who was sitting next to me, leaned over and said, "As they say in America, he (Zelensky — ed.) is a pain in the ass," Stoltenberg recalls.