Why Trump suddenly says Ukraine can win—and what’s behind the shift

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US President Donald Trump during the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York. (Courtesy: Reuters photo)

At the UN, US President Donald Trump declared that Ukraine can win back all territory seized by Russia with NATO support—a sharp contrast to months of urging Kyiv to trade land for peace. Scratch the surface, though, and the shift looks more rhetorical than real. There was no matching pledge of new US weapons, money, intelligence sharing, or a revived mediation track. The line that changed was the sound bite; the policy machinery didn’t move with it, the New York Times reported.

A White House caught off guard

Trump’s own team appeared surprised by the tone change. Within hours, Secretary of State and acting national security adviser Marco Rubio reiterated the administration’s prior mantra that the war “cannot end militarily” and must conclude at a negotiating table. That mismatch spotlights the administration’s core dilemma—how to talk tough on Russia without recommitting the United States to the scale of assistance that made Ukraine’s early resilience possible.

Europe carrying the load

For much of the war, the burden split roughly half between the US and Europe. Today, the US share has faded while Europe keeps Ukraine in the fight through arms and financing—enough to hold lines in places, not enough to guarantee victory. Allies at the UN heard Trump’s new optimism but looked for spending lines, not applause lines. Without American logistics, intelligence, and deep magazines, European aid alone struggles to shift the strategic balance.

Hawkish Republicans push back

Republican hawks welcomed Trump’s rhetoric, then blasted his own administration for undercutting it. They point to reductions in US training and regional security programs and warn that blaming NATO for “provoking” Russia contradicts the president’s stated endgame. The result is mixed signals: a White House asserting Ukraine can win, and agencies tightening the flows that would help it try.

Zelensky’s cautious relief

President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the rhetorical turn as a “game changer” because it removes pressure for territorial concessions. But he tempered relief with urgency, stressing that Ukraine still needs cash, precision munitions, air defences, drone technology, and sustained intelligence. His UN message echoed a lesson of the past two years—that security comes from “friends and weapons,” not resolutions. Words alone cannot intercept drones, refit brigades, or reload air defences.

Moscow’s measured response

The Kremlin dismissed Trump’s “paper tiger” jab and focused on the fundamentals. If US support remains mostly rhetorical, Russia’s attritional advantages—manpower, domestic arms output, and its shadow-oil economy—persist. Moscow gauges American resolve in matériel, not podium language. Absent fresh US commitments, a presidential pivot sounds like strategic patience, waiting out Kyiv under drone swarms and artillery grind.

A warning of a new arms race

Zelensky used his UN platform to warn that Ukraine’s battlefield laboratory of cheap drones, rapid iteration, and electronic warfare is seeding a broader arms race. As AI-guided systems proliferate, he argued, the nuclear era’s logic of deterrence must coexist with a messy reality of swarms, spoofing, and sabotage far from front lines. That makes the war bigger than borders; it is about who sets the rules of autonomy, escalation, and export controls.

Politics behind the pivot

Seen through a domestic lens, Trump’s switch achieves three political aims: it distances him from earlier pressure on Kyiv to cede land, claims credit for a tougher line on Russia without new costs, and shifts the onus to Europe by suggesting Ukraine can win with NATO support. It is, functionally, a wash-our-hands posture couched in winning language.

A pivot without substance

The ultimate measure will not be Trump’s words but America’s budgets, shipments, and training pipelines. Allies and adversaries alike are watching whether Washington matches rhetoric with resources. Until that happens, Trump’s pivot remains more a sound bite than a strategy, offering Zelensky symbolic relief while signalling to Moscow that US disengagement may be settling in under a different label.