President Donald Trump is sitting down on Tuesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at what looks like the peak of their relationship \u2014 though it may not last.<\/p>\n
Trump recently announced plans to give Ukraine a license to produce its own Patriot missiles, a potentially critical boost for the country in its four-year war with Russia. Just as importantly, Trump also praised<\/a> Zelenskyy after their meeting at the NATO summit. And Ukraine is increasingly striking back at Russia.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a sharp turnabout from the tense Oval Office spat earlier in Trump\u2019s second term, which ended with Zelenskyy\u2019s early departure. The Trump-Zelenskyy thaw is happening amid a broader shift in the Republican Party toward Ukraine, underscored by right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer\u2019s high-profile conversion from Russia sympathizer to Ukraine defender.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to overstate this, but for the first time since 2022, [Vladimir] Putin is on his back foot,\u201d said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., of the Russian leader. Kennedy added that Trump \u201csees what we all see, and that now it\u2019s time to put some pressure on Putin \u2014 and the Ukrainians have Putin down.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet it\u2019s not clear whether Trump\u2019s warmer posture towards Zelenskyy is a concrete realignment or a strategic effort to force Putin to the negotiating table. Some close to the US president say the latter is closer to reality, and that Trump\u2019s welcoming of the Ukrainian leader today is designed to wind down a brutal war that he promised to end \u2014 while another war, in Iran, shows little signs of abating.<\/p>\n Even the Russia sanctions bill contains evidence for both arguments: Trump is growing impatient with Putin, but has stopped short of full public support for the measure. At the same time, his White House\u2019s positive signals about the legislation point to a hardening stance toward Putin.<\/p>\n Inside the administration, \u201cany lingering sentiment about trusting Putin has long since gone,\u201d one person close to Trump told Semafor. \u201cWhat we\u2019re waiting for here is a more consistent Putin. And the way to get that is for Putin to understand that he\u2019s not the only girl at the party.\u201d<\/p>\n For some GOP senators, the relationship feels genuinely different. Asked if Trump is more sympathetic to Zelenskyy and less so to Putin, Kennedy replied: \u201cYes is the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n Loomer\u2019s about-face on Ukraine, the product<\/a> of concerted advocacy by conservative allies of Kyiv, is sparking attention and serving as a challenge to the continued pro-Russia bent of right-wing pundits like Tucker Carlson. The Trump ally posted a series of apologies about her past comments after visiting Ukraine; Loomer said<\/a> at one point that she had been \u201cbamboozled by Russian propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n But people close to Trump are skeptical that Loomer \u2014 no matter how close she is to the US president\u2019s ear \u2014 is playing much of a role in his thinking about Ukraine and Russia.<\/p>\n Ultimately, Trump aides said, the president is focused on steering Putin and Zelenskyy toward a deal.<\/p>\n \u201cThe president has a humanitarian heart and wants this war settled so the senseless killing ends,\u201d said a White House official, describing Trump as playing \u201ca constructive role in speaking to both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump is sitting down on Tuesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at what looks like the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-788882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}