President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Ukraine can reclaim all land taken by Russia, a major reversal from his earlier calls for Kyiv to concede territory to end the war as he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump offered his position in a social media posting soon after meeting with Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Trump in part wrote, "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. 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.”
The two presidents, who have had strained ties in previous sitdowns, greeted each other warmly on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders.
"We have great respect for the fight that Ukraine is putting up," Trump told Zelenskyy, who replied that he had "good news" from the battlefield.
"We will speak of how to finish the war and security guarantees," Zelenskyy said, thanking the U.S. leader for the meeting and for his "personal efforts to stop this war."
As the fighting rages on, Trump said the "biggest progress" toward ending the conflict "is that the Russian economy is terrible right now." Zelenskyy said Ukraine agreed with Trump's call for European nations to further halt imports of Russian oil and natural gas.
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."
With his troops under strain on the front line after more than three years of fighting Russia's bigger invading army, Zelenskyy was meeting world leaders in New York and was due to speak at a special U.N. Security Council session on Ukraine.
Peace efforts set in motion by Trump since he returned to office in January appear to have stalled. Trump's Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a White House meeting with Zelenskyy and key European leaders took place more than a month ago, but the war has continued unabated.
Following those meetings, Trump announced that he was arranging for direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy. But Putin hasn't shown any interest in meeting with Zelenskyy and Moscow has only intensified its bombardment of Ukraine.
European leaders, as well as American lawmakers, including some Republican allies of Trump, have urged the president to dial up stronger sanctions on Russia. Trump, meanwhile, has pressed Europe to stop buying Russian oil, the engine feeding Putin's war machine.
Trump said a "very strong round of powerful tariffs" would "stop the bloodshed, I believe, very quickly." He repeated his calls for Europe to "step it up" and stop buying Russian oil.
