US President Donald Trump has said that Kiev can ‘win all of Ukraine back in its original form,’ marking a major shift in his position on the developing war and the threat to restore capitalism to Ukraine and then Russia.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said Ukraine could get back ‘the original borders from where this war started’ with the support of Europe and NATO, due to pressures on Russia’s economy.
He made his comments after talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, held after Trump had addressed the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
Making a threat to Russia he added: ‘Ukraine could maybe even go further than that’, but did not specify what he was referring to.
The arrogant Trump added: ‘Putin and Russia are in big economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act,’ labelling Russia as a ‘paper tiger’.
In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said: ‘Russia is in no way a tiger. It’s more associated with a bear and there is no such thing as a paper bear,’ he told Russia’s RBK Radio.
The spokesman added that he ‘values the US president’s efforts to seek a resolution to the Ukraine conflict’.
However, Zelensky, US agent in the Ukraine, hailed the ‘big shift’ in Trump’s position, and speaking to reporters, said he understood the US was willing to give Ukraine security guarantees ‘after the war is finished’.
Pressed on what this would look like, he added: ‘I don’t want to lie, we don’t have specific details,’ but broached the possibility of more weapons, air defences and drones. Speaking later on Fox News, Zelensky said that Trump’s Truth Social post about Ukraine’s positioning surprised him, but he took it as a ‘positive signal’ that Trump and the US ‘will be with us to the end of the war’.
Earlier on Tuesday, following his speech to the UN, Trump also said NATO nations should shoot down Russian planes breaching their airspace, following a series of recent incursions by Russian fighter jets and drones.
Last week, Estonia and Poland requested a consultation with other NATO members claiming Russia ‘violated’ its airspace in separate incidents. Romania, another NATO member, also accused Russian drones breached its airspace.
After meeting on Tuesday, NATO issued a statement condemning Russia’s actions and warned that it would use ‘all necessary military and non-military tools’ to defend itself.
NATO’s secretary general Mark Rutte said: ‘We are a defensive alliance, yes, but we are not naive, so we see what is happening.’
Speaking at the UN, Poland’s president Karol Nawrocki echoed those comments, saying his country was prepared to ‘defend its territory’ and ‘react adequately’.
‘Polish people, as well as countries of Central and Eastern Europe, will not be scared of Russian drones,’ he said. Russia denied violating Estonia’s airspace, while it insisted the Polish incursion was not deliberate and did not comment on the Romania incident.
Asked if the US would support its NATO allies if they shot down Russian aircraft, Trump said it ‘depends on the circumstance’ and praised the military alliance for increasing defence spending.
‘NATO has stepped up,’ he said, referring to an agreement by leaders to ramp up defence spending to 5% of their countries’ economic output by 2035.
In his speech hours earlier, Trump criticised some NATO members for not ceasing the purchase of Russian energy, saying they were ‘funding a war against themselves’.
In February, Trump told Zelensky during their fiery Oval Office exchange that Zelensky did ‘not have the cards right now’ to prevail against a larger, more populous nation in a war of attrition.
Trump’s post ended on Tuesday with an assurance the US would continue to sell arms to NATO which would then pass them along to Ukraine.
Workers of the EU. the UK and the USA must spell it out to their rulers that there will be no restoration of capitalism back into this region, and that this is the time to advance to the victory of the world socialist revolution!
