‘Will not put up with it for much longer’: Trump slams Zelenskyy

US President Donald Trump has slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for suggesting the end of Russia's war against Ukraine is still likely "very, very far away".

Zelenskyy on Monday (early Tuesday AEDT) said he believed the war would go on for some time, while trying to offer a positive take about the US-Ukraine relationship in the aftermath of his contentious White House meeting the Republican president and Vice President JD Vance.

"I think our relationship (with the US) will continue, because it's more than an occasional relationship," Zelenskyy said, referring to Washington's support for the past three years of war.

Zelenskyy publicly was upbeat despite recent diplomatic upheaval between Western countries that have been helping Ukraine with military hardware and financial aid.

The turn of events is unwelcome for Ukraine, whose understrength army is having a hard time keep bigger Russian forces at bay.

I believe that Ukraine has a strong enough partnership with the United States of America" to keep aid flowing, he said at a briefing in Ukrainian before leaving London.

But Trump seemed further irritated by Zelenskyy's latest comments suggesting it will take time for the three-year conflict to come to a close.

"This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!" Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

"It is what I was saying, this guy doesn't want there to be Peace as long as he has America's backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the US — Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia.

"What are they thinking?"

Also on Monday (early Tuesday AEDT) French Prime Minister François Bayrou tore into Trump's Oval Office thrashing of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling it a staggering show of "brutality" that aimed to humiliate Ukraine's leader.

The extraordinarily frank criticism during a parliamentary debate on Ukraine, diverged from the more nuanced tone that French President Emmanuel Macron has adopted in the wake of the clash at the White House on Friday and dropped the diplomatic niceties that customarily mark French-US relations.

"On Friday night, in the Oval Office of the White House, a staggering scene unfurled before the lenses of the entire world, marked by brutality, a desire to humiliate, with the goal of making Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fold through threats," Bayrou said.

"President Zelenskyy did not fold and I think we can show him our appreciation," Bayrou continued.

Lawmakers got to their feet in the National Assembly chamber to applaud.

Zelenskyy was in London to attend UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's effort to rally his European counterparts around continuing — and likely much increased — support for Ukraine from the continent amid political uncertainty in the US, and Trump's overtures toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Europe is suspicious of Trump's motives and strategy. Friedrich Merz, Germany's likely next leader after the recent election, said on Monday that he had watched the Oval Office scene repeatedly.

"My assessment is that it wasn't a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelenskyy, but apparently an induced escalation in this meeting in the Oval Office," Merz said.

He said that he was "somewhat astonished by the mutual tone" but there has been "a certain continuity to what we are seeing from Washington at the moment" in recent weeks.

"I would advocate for us preparing to have to do a great, great deal more for our own security in the coming years and decades," he said.

Even so, Merz said that he wanted to keep the trans-Atlantic relationship alive.

"I would also advocate doing everything to keep the Americans in Europe," he said.

More to come.