Trump told Zelenskyy he was impressed by Ukraine’s battlefield results, FT reports
At a private dinner during last week's G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, US President Donald Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he was impressed by Ukraine's recent battlefield results, the Financial Times reported on 23 June, citing two people briefed on closed discussions among leaders.
Trump was described as "hugely impressed and enthusiastic" about Ukraine's recent campaign of long-range strikes on targets deep inside Russia, the sources told the FT. At the summit, Trump also agreed to increase sanctions on Russian energy. Those strikes have since intensified, with attacks on military targets near Moscow and on an oil refinery on the city's outskirts, and are supported by US intelligence, which western allies have urged Washington to continue providing.
Patriot licences and weapons production
Zelenskyy said after the meeting that Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had "responded positively to the issue of licences" for Patriot interceptor missiles "for the first time." He said all technical capabilities needed for licensed Patriot missile production already exist and that Trump's personal approval is the remaining requirement. Trump, Zelenskyy added, "plans to ask US defence companies to establish licensed production of air-defence missiles in Europe and Ukraine."
One Ukrainian official said further negotiations between Rustem Umerov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, and US officials would determine the details of any Patriot agreement.
Senior Ukrainian administration officials told the FT they see signs Trump is moving toward stronger support for Kyiv and may be more willing to pressure Russia to end its war. They remain sceptical about follow-through, noting his prior unfulfilled commitments, but were cautiously optimistic following the summit meetings.
Russia accuses US of abandoning mediator role
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at a Moscow foreign policy conference on 24 June, claimed the US was "seemingly stepping back from the role of an objective mediator" and had "forgotten" Trump's own statements from the previous year that had moved toward Moscow's position. Russia would, Lavrov said, "focus on achieving the goals of the [invasion] on the basis that all hopes the US could be an honest mediator collapsed long ago."
He also appeared to question the Alaska summit held between Putin and Trump last August, which ended contentiously after the parties discovered they were considerably further apart than expected. "I don't even want to suspect that Alaska, just like Europe's actions, was conceived to win time to keep arming the Kyiv regime," Lavrov claimed. "But what happened happened."
Western diplomats and people involved in back-channel efforts told the FT that Russian frustration with the US has been building since last summer. Moscow felt Trump envoy Steve Witkoff had misconstrued Russia's position ahead of the Alaska meeting; the White House denied this. The White House released a statement after Alaska in which Trump abandoned his push for an immediate ceasefire and appeared to endorse Putin's demands for a permanent settlement, but the US has since returned to its earlier position, per the FT.
NATO official: Russian lines are not impenetrable
European capitals have used the apparent shift in Trump's reading of the conflict—and in particular his acknowledgment that a Russian victory is not inevitable—to push for increased support to Kyiv. "When Ukraine is properly supplied, they can generate real operational effects," one senior NATO military official told the FT. "The Russian defensive lines are not impenetrable."
Rubio told a Senate hearing this month that Russia would not achieve the objectives it set out on day one of the invasion. "They may not even be able to militarily ever achieve the objectives they're demanding now in negotiations," he said.
