Ukrainian servicemen in Kyiv pay respect to a soldier who was killed in the Russia-Ukraine war as a hearse with his body drives through the city on Wednesday.Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated Press
Politicians in Kyiv and Moscow were left scratching their heads Wednesday, trying to understand Donald Trump’s latest about-face on the war, after the U.S. President posted on social media that he now believed Ukraine could emerge victorious.
Ukrainian politicians were delighted, and Russian figures openly baffled, by the latest twist, which came barely a month after Mr. Trump greeted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House with a situation map and told Mr. Zelensky that Russia was “so clearly much more powerful” than Ukraine. Both sides are now wondering whether Mr. Trump intends to back up his latest position with any new help for Ukraine’s war effort.
Mr. Trump posted Tuesday on his Truth Social platform that “after getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation” he believed that – with the support of the European Union and NATO – Ukraine “is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.”
It was yet another stark reversal on Russia and Ukraine from Mr. Trump, who came to office boasting that he could end the war in 24 hours. As recently as the Aug. 19 meeting in the White House – which followed a face-to-face summit in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin – Mr. Trump was pushing Ukraine to accept a peace deal that would allow Russia to keep the roughly 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory it has conquered since February, 2022.
Mr. Trump has also whiplashed between blaming Mr. Zelensky and his own predecessor, Joe Biden, for “starting” a war he viewed as unwinnable (Mr. Putin instigated the conflict by ordering an full-scale invasion of Ukraine), and expressing disappointment with Mr. Putin’s unwillingness to make peace.
“It’s an unexpected and yet important shift in his stance on Ukraine, and it differs starkly from his previous position when Trump was thinking that Russia is winning the war,” Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told The Globe and Mail on Wednesday. “At the same time what also matters is not only his rhetoric, however positive, but also Trump’s actions.”
Speaking to a Fox News interviewer shortly after Mr. Trump posted his new thinking online, Mr. Zelensky said he believed Mr. Trump no longer expected Ukraine to accept a land-for-peace deal to end the war. “I think he understands, for today, that we can’t just swap territories. It’s not fair,” Mr. Zelensky said.
Zelensky reacts as he meets with Trump during the 80th United Nations General Assembly, in New York City, on Tuesday.Alexander Drago/Reuters
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader seemed to be working hard to keep the U.S. President onside, condemning last year’s assassination attempt against Mr. Trump – “God saved him from a murder attempt” – as well as the recent killing of pro-Trump commentator Charlie Kirk. Mr. Zelensky’s speech also echoed Mr. Trump’s position on Gaza – he said only that the hostages held by Hamas “must be freed” – and criticisms of the UN that Mr. Trump had levelled in his own speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday.
In his lengthy post, Mr. Trump also referenced reports of gasoline shortages in parts of Russia and said “Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act.” In recent weeks, Ukrainian special forces units – using mostly domestically produced drones – have carried out a series of long-distance strikes targeting Russia’s oil-and-gas infrastructure.
Mr. Merezhko said that while Kyiv was still waiting to see the U.S. impose tough new tariffs and sanctions on Moscow – as Mr. Trump has been threatening to do for months – Mr. Trump’s words could be seen as green-lighting Ukraine’s use of U.S.-made weapons to strike even deeper into Russia.
Trump shifts position on Ukraine, says country can take back Russian-occupied territory
Zelensky is escorted to the podium to speak at the 80th United Nations General Assembly, on Wednesday.Yuki Iwamura/The Associated Press
Kyiv-based political analyst Peter Zalmayev, however, cautioned that Ukraine needed to “be careful not to keep riding on this Trumpian rollercoaster. This sort of shift in rhetoric can be interpreted many ways.”
Mr. Trump could be seen as setting the stage for walking away from the war by saying Ukraine could win with European support alone, Mr. Zalmayev said. “Donald Trump is always in this constant mode of gaslighting and drawing attention to things that he will later then disavow.”
Russian politicians, meanwhile, scorned Mr. Trump’s new interpretation of events, suggesting that he’d been swayed by meetings with Mr. Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the UN meeting in New York.
“After meeting with the clowns from Kyiv and Paris, he published a vivid post. In this new reality, everything is different. Kyiv is winning, Russia is torn to shreds,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on Telegram on Wednesday.
During a quick pull-aside meeting at the UN, Trump emphasized his new position that Ukraine can win back all territory lost to Russia during a bilateral meeting with Macron.
The Associated Press
Mr. Medvedev, who is now deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council – and who already had a social-media spat with Mr. Trump earlier this year – said it wouldn’t be surprising to see Mr. Trump reverse course again and call on Ukraine to surrender. “I have no doubt he will return,” to Russia’s side, Mr. Medvedev wrote. “He always returns.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr. Trump’s words would have no impact on the battlefield, where Russian troops continue take heavy losses as they grind slowly forward.
“The fact that Ukraine is being encouraged in every possible way to continue hostilities and the argument that Ukraine can win something back is, in our view, a mistaken argument,” Mr. Peskov said. “The dynamics on the front lines speak for themselves.”
A situation report published Monday by the Kyiv-based Centre for Defence Strategies found that Moscow would likely fail to achieve its military objective of capturing all of southeastern Ukraine by the end of 2025. CDS forecast, however, that key cities including Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region, and Kupyansk, in the Kharkiv region, would fall to Russian troops in the coming months “provided current dynamics of combat operations are maintained.”