Trump: Ukraine Can Win Back All Territory from Russia

President Donald Trump said Tuesday afternoon that he thinks Ukraine, with help from the European Union, could win back its territory from Russia and return the country to its original borders.

Trump had previously suggested numerous times that giving up some land would be a key component of resolving Ukraine's war with Russia.

"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 said in a lengthy post on Truth Social.

He said that with the financial support of NATO, returning Ukraine to its original borders is "very much an option." He added that Russia has been "fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win. This is not distinguishing Russia."

Trump suggested that once Russian citizens realize how much is being spent on fighting Ukraine, which he said has "Great Spirit, and only getting better, Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that!"

Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin and his country are in "BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act." He said the United States will continue to supply weapons to NATO "for NATO to do what they want with them."

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Trump envisions the borders’ returning to what they were before Russia invaded in February 2022 or whether they would also include Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.

Asked about Trump's post, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters: "It’s a big shift. This post of Trump it’s a big shift. Very positive."

In a Fox News interview later Tuesday, Zelenskyy said he believes Trump "understands, for today, that we can't just swap territories. It's not fair."

Asked whether he thinks Trump has changed his earlier position regarding Ukrainian territory, Zelenskyy told host Bret Baier, "Yes, I think so."

The goal of Trump's social media post and subsequent comments to reporters about it was to exert “maximum public pressure on Russia to get them to the table for a deal” to end the war, according to a senior administration official.

The official told NBC News that the administration’s next steps will depend on how the Russians respond. This official didn’t outline any specific policy shift happening now or set to happen in reaction to whatever Russia says or does next.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News Tuesday night that Trump has "been increasingly frustrated with both sides of this war for a very long time, but most recently, he’s been incredibly frustrated with President Putin and Russia, who continue to talk nice, but then we wake up every morning, and in the West Wing, we’re receiving reports about how Russia bombed Ukraine and they continue to kill innocent civilians."

Trump has issued various ambiguous and contradictory statements in the past about the war.

While Trump has become increasingly critical of Putin, saying last week that he has “really let me down,” he had generally maintained a more neutral approach in trying to bring both sides together for negotiations since their bilateral meeting last month in Alaska without taking concrete action to ratchet up pressure on Russia or to provide more direct U.S. military assistance to Ukraine.

Tuesday’s statement does differ, however, in referring to a new arrangement with European allies, with NATO members now buying U.S.-made weapons on behalf of Ukraine.

There was no indication that the White House had notified allies or Ukraine of a change in U.S. policy, according to three Western officials and a source close to Ukraine.

There’s no expectation at the moment among allies that Trump’s comments would result in action from the United States in the form of new sanctions on Russia or new weapons packages for Ukraine, the sources said.

But Ukraine and European allies at least were encouraged that Trump wasn’t directing his ire at Kyiv or suggesting that Zelenskyy’s government make territorial concessions to Putin.

“We have always been saying that Russia has been weaker than anyone thought,” said a Western official with a country that is a member of the so-called Coalition of the Willing.

“We have been saying they have been weakened by the sanctions and weaker than what some think and weaker than even Putin thinks,” the person said. “We fully agree with this analysis.”

Trump’s post also made no mention of more U.S. diplomatic efforts to try to end the war or to organize peace talks, suggesting he might be ready to pull back on those efforts, Western officials said.

The State Department said Tuesday night that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Rubio last met with Lavrov in July on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Kuala Lumpur, where he said Russia had put forward “a new and a different approach” to ending the war.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with Trump on the sidelines of the U.N. meeting Tuesday afternoon, applauded Trump's new statement on the war, saying, "I think it’s a very, very right one."

"If we back completely Ukraine in this situation, given the Russian economy is suffering, I mean, there is this opportunity of a good future," Macron told Trump.

Trump then said, "I really do feel that way. Let them get their land back."

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican on the Appropriations Committee, called Trump’s shift “a gamechanger” Tuesday on X.

“This commitment to continue to sell high end American weapons to NATO for the benefit of Ukraine tremendously changes the military equation for Russia,” Graham wrote.

“President Trump is correct in assessing that the Russian economy is under stress and this will only get worse if we make buying cheap Russian oil and gas toxic for those who choose that path,” added Graham, who said last month that Russia and Ukraine would have to swap some territory to end the war.

Mykola Murskyj, the director of advocacy for the group Razom for Ukraine, which has worked to shore up U.S. support for Ukraine, said Trump’s comments Tuesday marked the “kind of leadership that wins Nobel Peace Prizes.”

“Putin only respects strength, and that’s exactly what we saw from President Trump today,” Murskyj said in a statement.

Trump has frequently touted his efforts as deserving of such an accolade.

Russia has said it wants Ukraine to cede roughly 20% of the territory Putin claimed as part of its conditions to end the war. It has also demanded that Ukraine not be permitted to join NATO.

Kyiv has refused to recognize those annexations, and its European allies argue that Russia can’t veto Ukraine’s potential NATO membership.

Trump posted on social media Tuesday after he met with Zelenskyy for the fifth time in person during his second term on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Before their closed-door conversation, Trump told reporters that he supports NATO countries’ shooting down any Russian aircraft that violate their airspace. Asked whether the United States would back up NATO allies, he said it would “depend” on the circumstances.

Trump also conveyed to the media that there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight for the conflict. “It looks like it’s not going to end for a long time,” he said.

As a candidate, Trump promised to end the war quickly, within hours or days after returning to the White House. In April, he said that timeline was "an exaggeration."

Trump earlier this year portrayed Ukraine as the obstacle to peace. In February, he berated Zelenskyy and said Kyiv was facing a hopeless situation on the battlefield.

He also has repeatedly said exchanging territory between Ukraine and Russia would be a key element of any solution to end the war.

At the White House last month, Trump suggested that there have been talks about Russia and Ukraine’s potentially “swapping” territory as part of a ceasefire deal.

“We’re actually looking to get some back and some swapping. It’s complicated. It’s actually nothing easy. It’s very complicated,” Trump said Aug. 8 at an event with leaders from Azerbaijan and Armenia.

“But we’re going to get some back. We’re going to get some switched,” he added. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, and ... we’ll be talking about that either later or tomorrow, or whatever.”

Ahead of the annual U.N. gathering this week, Zelenskyy called on European countries and the United States to intensify pressure on Russia with secondary sanctions. He cited the ongoing attacks against his country, including a large-scale missile and drone attack over the weekend that killed at least three people and wounded dozens more.

NATO members have been rattled recently after Russia flew drones over Poland and sent jets into Estonian airspace, actions that could be tests of NATO’s emergency procedures, which Russia’s Defense Ministry has denied.

On Monday night, two or three large drones flew over Copenhagen airport — Scandinavia’s largest — forcing its closure. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Tuesday that Russian involvement couldn’t be ruled out.

Zelenskyy said in Tuesday’s Fox News interview that he had spoken with Trump about intensifying pressure “directly on Putin” and on Russia’s energy network and its financing and banking systems.

“We spoke with details about it, and we count on sanctions from the United States side,” Zelenskyy said. He also said he believed Trump could “change the attitude” of Chinese President Xi Jinping to bring an end to the war.

During his speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday morning, Trump criticized European nations that have continued to purchase oil from Russia despite wanting to ramp up pressure on Putin to end the war.

Although Trump has criticized Russia at times for its intransigence, he hasn’t followed through on past threats to slap new sanctions on Moscow. He also hasn’t imposed secondary sanctions on China for its economic support of Russia, even though he has placed tariffs on India over its purchases of Russian oil.