U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he believes Ukraine can win back all the territory it has lost to Russia, a dramatic shift from his earlier suggestions that Kyiv should make concessions in order to secure peace.
Trump stated his new position on the war he has struggled to end, despite vowing to do so, in a social media post soon after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
“After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option. Why not?”
He said Russia “has been fighting aimlessly” in a war “that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” calling Moscow “a paper tiger.”
“Putin and Russia are in BIG economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act,” Trump continued.
“In any event, I wish both countries well. We will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them. Good luck to all!”
Zelenskyy was in New York to meet with world leaders at the UN to ensure economic and military pressure is kept on Russia to bring the three-and-a-half year war to an end.
Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday co-hosted an event at the UN with Zelenskyy focused on securing the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia during the war, and the UN Security Council was also hosting a special session on Ukraine.
It was not clear from Trump’s post if he was abandoning his efforts to broker a peace agreement between Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
More than a month ago, Trump and the White House said they had secured commitments from Putin to meet with Zelenskyy after a summit between the American and Russian presidents in Alaska. Following those talks, Trump dropped his demand for an immediate ceasefire and suggested there could be some “land swapping” under a future deal.
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Zelenskyy himself said he was ready to meet Putin for the first time while meeting with Trump and European leaders at the White House days after the Putin summit. Europe, Canada and other allies began drawing up future security guarantees for Ukraine that would be part of a larger agreement that would end the war.
Yet Putin hasn’t shown any interest in meeting with Zelenskyy and Moscow has only intensified its bombardment of Ukraine, frustrating Trump.
The U.S. president’s new tone also marks a shift from the stance taken by some Republicans and top officials in the administration, including U.S. Vice-President JD Vance, that the U.S. should extricate itself from the war in Ukraine and that Kyiv should accept land concessions to quickly secure peace.
In his speech to the General Assembly earlier Tuesday, Trump said the war in Ukraine was making Russia “look bad” because it was “supposed to be a quick little skirmish.”
“It shows you what leadership is, what bad leadership can do to a country,” he said. “The only question now is how many lives will be needlessly lost on both sides.”
As the fighting rages on, Trump said the “biggest progress” toward ending the conflict “is that the Russian economy is terrible right now.”
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in its latest assessment Monday that “some Russian defense industrial enterprises are reportedly struggling to expand their production and workforces due to economic constraints,” citing Russian opposition media. Those reports said wages in the Russian defence sector have declined for the first time since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.
At the same time, Moscow has prioritized funding its drone operations, and Russian officials in occupied territories of Ukraine have openly boasted about training children there in the development and operation of military drones.
“Putin has stolen Ukrainian children,” Carney said at Tuesday’s UN meeting with Zelenskyy and other leaders, decrying “tactics” used to indoctrinate and change the citizenship of those children.
Drones have been responsible for deadly Russian attacks on Kyiv and other cities in recent weeks. The UN reported Monday that the number of Ukrainian civilian casualties from those drone strikes increased 40 per cent so far this year compared to 2024.
Trump told the world body that the U.S. would impose additional sanctions and other economic measures against Russia, but only if European nations do the same and fully cut themselves off from Russian oil.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday while meeting with Trump that EU members were looking to approve plans on blocking Russian oil and natural gas exports and laying new sanctions by the end of the year.
Trump said a “very strong round of powerful tariffs” would “stop the bloodshed, I believe, very quickly.”
At his meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump told reporters he would share his thoughts on Putin and whether he trusts him to finally enter peace negotiations in “about a month.”
Zelenskyy said Ukraine agreed with Trump’s call for European nations to further halt Russian energy imports.
“We need more pressure, more sanctions now with (the) United States, first of all (and) Europe,” he said in opening remarks ahead of the meeting.
—With files from the Associated Press
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