KYIV (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has retuned his wardrobe since a disastrous Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump in February, switching his typical khaki military-style tee-shirts and long-sleeved tops for more formal, but still rugged, black suit-style jackets and shirts.
The media-savvy leader had wanted to show solidarity with the troops fighting Russia on the frontline. But he was chided by a U.S. reporter for not wearing a suit at the White House event, which descended into a shouting match over whether he was showing sufficient gratitude for U.S. wartime support.
Since then, Zelenskiy has worked to rebuild relations with Washington, whose military help Kyiv still badly needs, even though the U.S. president has shown no sign of resuming the donations of weaponry that his predecessor Joe Biden had instituted.
When Zelenskiy met Trump at Pope Francis’s funeral in Rome in April, he wore a heavy black field jacket and black shirt buttoned to the collar, with no tie.
He sported a similar look when meeting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London on Monday, and again at the dinner hosted on Tuesday by the Dutch king that preceded Wednesday’s NATO summit in The Hague.
Although he was not invited to the meeting itself, he met with Trump afterwards, with an agenda including a wish-list of arms purchases.
The subtle switch, stopping short of white shirt or tie, has captured attention on social media and from the Ukrainian edition of ELLE magazine, which on Wednesday described his changed look as “visual diplomacy of a new kind”.
The negative focus on Zelenskiy’s attire at the White House was widely criticised by Ukrainians, who have largely rallied around their leader since Moscow’s February 2022 invasion.
A communications adviser for the president’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk; Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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