From laughter to shock to sadness, members of New York’s Ukrainian-American community reacted to the tense exchange between the two world leaders.

Asked if he’d seen the video of the tense Oval Office exchange involving President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Igor Martiniouk responded with a laugh.

“It’s hard to see it,” said Matriniouk, a Ukrainian-American who was grabbing coffee at East Village Ukrainian restaurant Veselka. “But it’s like you kind of didn’t expect anything else.”

“There’s one person whose fate of a country is, [you] know, to be determined, and then there’s another one who’s trying to determine the fate of another country and saying, ‘these are the rules you should play by,’ even though its not his country,” he continued.

“[I am] shocked, discouraged, saddened,” Jason Birchard, owner of Veselka, said. “We are living in a Twilight Zone era of news. And [I’m] just concerned that our administration is not following through its obligations to continue to support Ukraine.”

Asked on Fox News if he felt he owed Trump an apology, Zelenskyy responded, “No.”

“I respect the president and I respect the American people... I think we have to be very open and honest, and I’m not sure we did something bad,” he said.

But Zelenskyy did suggest that perhaps it should have been behind closed doors.

“I think maybe sometimes some things we have to discuss out of the media,” he said.

It appears neither side had any regrets.

“We had a meeting today, as you know, with President Zelenskyy and I would say it didn’t work out exactly great from his standpoint,” Trump said on his way to Air Force One before departing for Florida. “I think he very much overplayed his hand.”

“It was the factor of a third person in the discussion that completely ruined [it],” Andrij Dobriansky, the New York-based communications director of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, said.

He said Vance’s inclusion in the discussion lead to the tense escalation.

“This is somebody who, as it was leading up to being chosen for vice president, stated that his main ambition in politics was to change United States policy toward Ukraine,” Dobriansky said.

Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian prime minister and president and deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, wrote on the social media platform X, “The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office...”

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham, who is an ally of both Trump and Zelenskyy, sides with Trump and expressed doubt about Zelenskyy remaining president.

“He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with or he needs to change,” Graham said.

“I don’t think it was in anyone’s interest for this to devolve into public the way it did,” New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler said in an interview on CNN. “It was destructive and, frankly, it was to Vladimir Putin’s benefit. He is the only one that won today based on what happened in the Oval Office.”

Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “American support for Ukraine is anchored in our own national security interests. America is stronger when Russia is weaker.”

He went on to say that the relationship between Trump and Zelenskyy “has to be salvaged” for the “good of the free world” if America is going to continue to play that role.