NYT: Trump 'defused' Talks With Zelensky With Call From Former Miss Ukraine

• 31.12.2025, 18:51

The US President spoke about his admiration for the beauty of Ukrainian women.

U.S. President Donald Trump, while speaking with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at the White House in August, unexpectedly arranged a phone conversation between the Ukrainian leader and former Miss Ukraine Alexandra Nikolayenko.

This is according to the publication The New York Times.

As described by the publication's interlocutors, the conversation took place after Zelensky, along with several European leaders, arrived in Washington on Aug. 18, after Trump and Putin met in Alaska, in order to convince the U.S. president of the dangers of making concessions to Russia.

At one point, Trump told his aides that when he owned the Miss Universe pageant, Ukrainian contestants were often the most beautiful, so he exclaimed: "Ukrainian women are beautiful". "I know, I married one of them," Zelensky responded.

Trump explained that his old friend, Las Vegas mogul Phil Ruffin, married former Miss Ukraine Oleksandra Mykolaenko, and the president himself met her at the Miss Universe pageant. So he called Ruffin, who passed the phone to his wife, and Trump did the same for Zelensky, and for the next 10 to 15 minutes the room fell silent as the two spoke in Ukrainian.

"You could feel the atmosphere in the room change," said an official who was there to witness it. - The temperature dropped. Everyone was laughing. It created a human connection. It was a kind of mind-meld. It made Zelensky more human to Trump."

A month later, in New York at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, Trump called Zelensky a "great man" who is "fighting a hell of a fight."