Speaking before beginning his meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Ankara, President Donald Trump indicated that he would be prepared to let Ukraine produce their own Patriot missiles, a main requirement which Zelensky has been demanding for over a year. “We’ll give them the right to make Patriots. We’ll show them how to do it,” Trump said. “I think they can produce them pretty quickly.”
When asked what he thought about Ukraine’s long-range bombing into Russia, he asked the reporter to “rephrase” the question and when they did, he deferred to Marco Rubio to answer the question. Rubio said that the strikes would increase the pressure on Russia. Then Trump replied, “It’s obviously an escalation,” but clarified that it could be an escalation that might bring both parties to negotiations much sooner.
The whole event seemed to be happening in an Alice-in-Wonderland world. Trump praised national security advisor Rustem Umerov, who was sitting next to Zelensky, as a hero. While no details were discussed with regard to the “conditions” of a peace agreement, Trump said that the U.S. would see to it that there were “security guarantees” for Ukraine with the conclusion of a peace agreement. Trump also exuded the same utopian optimism about his being able to cut a deal on Ukraine.
There was one uneasy moment for Zelensky when Trump was talking about how Ukraine could get back the millions of people who had left the country, pointing in particular to Poland. Trump then went on to praise Poland and the Polish president, noting Poland it was a very strong country. Zelensky listened with a somewhat “sheepish” look on his face, given Ukraine’s growing tensions with its Polish neighbor. Zelensky also made the ridiculous argument that Ukraine had now made “gains on the battlefield” in the last period, strengthening its bargaining position.
A slight degree of realism was expressed when Trump was asked if he would visit Kyiv. He said that now was not the time to visit, but that he would like to at some point in the future. He expressed the hope that it would be before much of the city is totally destroyed in the ongoing war.
