Former US president Joe Biden offers accounts of his dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin in his memoir, Promise Me, America. The book, scheduled for publication on 17 November, includes his impressions of both leaders and a request from members of Donald Trump's team.
The details were reported by The Wall Street Journal, according to European Pravda, and carried by Ukrainska Pravda. In the passages described in that reporting, Biden discusses the leaders' behaviour during their interactions with him, including the manner Putin adopted in meetings and the difficulties Biden experienced in private conversations with Zelenskyy.
Writing about Putin, Biden characterises his tone as petulant and describes a posture that he interpreted as a display of indifference. The Russian leader, Biden writes, "liked to slouch during a meeting, feigning indifference, like a teenager". The description presents Biden's personal assessment of Putin's conduct during their encounters.
His account of Zelenskyy combines praise for the Ukrainian president's professional background with criticism of their private exchanges. Biden writes that Zelenskyy's experience as an actor "turned out to be very good training" for him. He also recalls conversations in which he found the Ukrainian leader difficult to deal with.
Zelenskyy "could be moody and stubborn in our private conversations, and not as grateful as I would have expected", Biden writes. That assessment concerns Biden's own expectations and experience of their discussions, alongside his positive appraisal of the preparation provided by Zelenskyy's acting career.
The memoir also recounts an approach by members of Trump's team before Trump returned to office. According to Biden, they wanted him to sign a letter that would have enabled them to negotiate directly with Putin before the incoming president began his next term.
Biden says he declined to provide that authorisation because of his concerns about the possible outcome for Ukraine. He writes that he was "unwilling to give them carte blanche for what I expected would be a kind of surrender, at Ukraine's expense".
Separately, Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that has spread to his bones. His office reported a Gleason score of 9, indicating a high degree of malignancy. Trump wished Biden a speedy recovery after the diagnosis became public, but later questioned why it had not been disclosed earlier.
