Unpacking claim Zelenskyy called Vance an expletive at White House meeting
Following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's tense Oval Office meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Feb. 28, 2025, a rumor circulated online that Zelenskyy called Vance a Ukrainian expletive during the meeting.
For example, one Feb. 28 X post (archived) read:
ZELENSKY CALLED JD VANCE A B****!
The mic caught it!
He literally called JD Vance a B****. WOW
(X user @MyLordBebo)
Examples (archived) of the claim also appeared in other X posts (archived), as well as in multiple (archived) Reddit threads (archived). Snopes readers also searched our site and wrote in to ask for information about the claim.
In short, the audio of the available recording of the meeting was not clear enough to prove without doubt what Zelenskyy said, other than that it began with an "s" sound. In other words, it's possible the Ukrainian president said "suka" — Ukrainian for "b****" — or a term including the word, but it's also possible that he said something completely different.
Furthermore, even if Zelenksyy did say "suka," that wouldn't necessarily mean he was insulting Vance directly. The term can also be a general expletive in Ukrainian.
We've reached out to Zelenskyy's office for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
The moment in question can be seen around the 42:45 mark in the C-SPAN video embedded below. Just after Vance says, "I've watched and seen the stories, and I know what happens," Zelenskyy can be seen looking down and muttering what some internet users have interpreted as "suka," a word that means "b****" in both Ukrainian and Russian. (The word, spelled сука in Cyrillic characters, is sometimes also transliterated into Latin characters as "cyka.")
The word "suka" — like the English word "b****" — means "female dog" in both Ukrainian and Russian, and often has a pejorative sense. The word can also be an all-purpose expletive aimed at a situation rather than an individual.
Yuri Shevchuk, a senior lecturer in Ukrainian at Columbia University, said over email that he was not convinced that what Zelenskyy said was "suka." Shevchuk said he was unable to tell exactly what Zelenskyy said, but that he believed it was likely "something situationally equivalent to the English, 'Oh, not again!'"
As context for his interpretation, Shevchuk said that in the moments leading up to Zelenskyy's muttered comment, Vance was "clearly repeating almost verbatim Kremlin talking points."
Even if Zelenskyy did say the term, there's reason to think he might have been expressing frustration in general, rather than specifically calling Vance a "b****."
Krystyna Golovakova, a lecturer in the Russian and Ukrainian languages at Cornell University, described "suka" as "a widely used profanity in Ukrainian." Over email, she said: "While it literally means 'female dog,' it is commonly used to express frustration, anger, irritation, or exasperation. Depending on context, it can be directed at someone as an insult, but just as frequently, it serves as a general outburst, like how English speakers might use certain curse words in reaction to a very frustrating situation."
A 2022 blog post about Ukrainian profanity on the website of the language school Strommen described the term "suka" as "perhaps the most commonly heard and used curse word in online videos."
In both languages, as various internet users pointed out, the word is frequently part of a longer term, "suka blyat" (сука блять, also transliterated as "cyka blyat"). That term — which, as a Dictionary.com entry notes, has come into English usage through online gaming communities — is not a personal insult, but instead an expression of frustration roughly equivalent to the English terms "what the f***" or "f***ing hell."
Ultimately, any claim that Zelenskyy said "suka," "suka blyat" or a completely unrelated term is mere speculation due to the audio quality of the recording of the meeting. As Shevchuk, the Ukrainian language instructor, said, "In the absence of a clearly audible 'сука,' one can hear there whatever one wants to hear."
Cambridge Learner's Dictionary English-Russian with CD-ROM. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
"Cyka Blyat Meaning | Translations by Dictionary.Com." Dictionary.Com, 21 Aug. 2018, https://www.dictionary.com/e/translations/cyka-blyat/.
Ninʹovsʹkyĭ, Vasylʹ. Ukrainian-English and English-Ukrainian Dictionary. Edmonton, Alta. : Ukrainian Bk. Store, 1990. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/ukrainianenglish0000nino.
Strommen, Garrett. "Complete Vocab List of Ukrainian Curse Words - What Does Suka, Pizdets, Khuylo & Blyat Mean?" Strømmen Language Classes, 20 Nov. 2022, https://strommeninc.com/complete-vocab-list-ukrainian-curse-words-meaning-suka-pizdets-khuylo-blyat/.
"What They Said: Trump, Zelenskyy and Vance's Heated Argument in the Oval Office." AP News, 28 Feb. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/trump-zelenskyy-vance-transcript-oval-office-80685f5727628c64065da81525f8f0cf.
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