Ukrainians cautious after Trump shifts his stance, saying they can win the war against Russia

President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainians were cautious Wednesday in their response to a surprise pivot in U.S. President Donald Trump’s views on their prospects for defeating Russia’s invasion, after he said they could win the three-year war and retake land captured by Moscow.

Russian officials, meanwhile, said developments on the battlefield showed Ukraine is unable to reclaim the occupied territory and dismissed Trump’s description of Russia as a “paper tiger.”

“Russia isn’t a tiger, it’s more associated with a bear,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “There are no paper bears. Russia is a real bear.”

Wary Ukrainians hope for solid U.S. support

Some Ukrainians expressed hope that Trump’s words would be backed up by concrete support for Ukraine in Washington, while others were wary about the American president’s unpredictability.

“We need such support from America, from Donald Trump, and we hope that this will continue in the future — the same rhetoric, the same attitude toward us, toward Ukraine, and toward the war in Ukraine,” Olha Voronina, a 66-year-old Kyiv resident, said.

Volodymyr Cheslavskyi, a 48-year-old soldier recovering from a war wound, said he considered Trump to be more interested in making money than helping Ukraine, and kept people guessing about his true intentions with contradictory statements.

“He can say different things each time — he supports Ukraine, or he does not support Ukraine,” Cheslavskyi told The Associated Press in St. Michael’s Square in the Ukrainian capital.

Anna Khudimova, 43, said she believed her country’s armed forces could prevail on the battlefield against Russia’s bigger army.

“But we cannot do it without the help of NATO, without the support of Europe,” she said. “If Trump influences the situation, then perhaps this can be realistic.”

Russia has occupied around 20 per cent of Ukraine since it annexed Crimea in 2014. The all-out invasion began in February 2022.

U.S. and Ukraine eye joint weapons production

In comments Tuesday at the United Nations and on social media, Trump took a swipe at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership, made cutting remarks about Russia’s military prowess and derided the Russian economy’s performance. He also said NATO countries should shoot down Russian warplanes entering their airspace, as happened recently in Estonia.

Trump’s comments were an unanticipated departure from his previous positions on the war, when he was publicly cool, even at times hostile, toward Ukraine and apparently more amenable to Putin.

After taking office in January, Trump reversed the three-year U.S. policy of isolating Russia when he called Putin. He has also ruled out the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, has said Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would need to negotiate swapping land in return for a peace deal with Moscow, and on social media called Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections.”

A senior Ukrainian lawmaker said Trump’s latest remarks were unexpected but important.

“What remains important to us is not only Trump’s words, but also whether he fulfills the earlier promises regarding decisive sanctions” on Russia, Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation, told the AP.

The United States and Ukraine signed earlier this year a deal granting Washington access to the country’s critical minerals and other natural resources. Another agreement is in the works, with a Ukrainian delegation due in Washington next week for talks on joint weapons production, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S. Olha Stefanishyna said Wednesday.

The potential deal focuses on drone manufacturing, where Ukraine is at the cutting edge of new battle-tested technology, and was discussed “in quite some detail” between Trump and Zelenskyy on Tuesday, she said.

Kremlin says it is protecting Russia’s security

Zelenskyy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were due to address the UN General Assembly later Wednesday.

Trump said on social media Tuesday: “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.”

Max Bergmann, the director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said that when he read Trump’s post, his reaction was, “the U.S. is out” and handing off to Europe.

“I feel that it’s the president sort of signing off, like: ’We’ll keep sort of doing some stuff, but this is basically your problem,’” Bergmann said on the sidelines of a defence conference in Tallinn, Estonia.

Russia’s state television channels cast Trump’s comments as part of his efforts to shift the burden of dealing with the conflict to Europe and encourage it to buy more American weapons.

Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, challenged Trump’s comment that “Russia has been fighting aimlessly.”

Moscow has been fighting to “ensure our security and our interests and remove the root causes of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine … linked to the refusal by the previous American administrations and the Europeans to take our concerns into account,” Peskov said Wednesday.

He also countered Trump’s description of Russia’s economic woes, arguing that despite some problems, the Russian economy has remained strong.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who serves as deputy head of the Security Council chaired by Putin, scoffed at Trump’s comments as an “alternative reality.” He predicted that Trump could change his mind again soon.

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Volodymyr Yurchuk And Alex Babenko, The Associated Press

Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine and Harriet Morris in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this report.