President Donald Trump, right, and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shake hands at the start of a joint news conference following a meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla.Donald Trump sang Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s praises on Tuesday as the Ukraine war shifts in Kyiv’s favour.
Ukraine has intensified its long-range strikes on targets deep inside Russia recently and even managed to knock out power in the largest city in occupied Crimea overnight.
The US president, often accused of siding with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, told reporters: “Zelenskyy is doing pretty well. No matter how you look at it, he’s holding his own at least.
“A lot of people dying on both sides, but I think he’s doing pretty well. You have to say he’s courageous, he’s got great equipment, he’s got great men, he’s got fighters.”
The praise is a stark contrast to the US president’s attacks on Zelenskyy last February, when he publicly lambasted his Ukrainian counterpart in the Oval Office.
He accused Ukraine of not holding “any cards” with the war and, after the row, asked Zelenskyy to leave the White House early.
Trump’s sudden enthusiasm for Ukraine appears to reflect a shift within his administration in Zelenskyy’s favour.
He also agreed to hike up sanctions against Russian energy at last week’s G7 summit.
Meanwhile, US secretary of state Marco Rubio told a Senate hearing this month: ”[The Kremlin] are not going to achieve the objectives they set out on day one, for certain.
“They may not even be able to militarily ever achieve the objectives they’re demanding now in negotiations.”
Reporter: You like winners. Do you think President Zelensky is winning right now?
Trump: He's doing pretty well, no matter how you look at it. He's holding his own. A lot of people dying on both sides, but he's doing pretty well. You have to say he's courageous. He's got great… pic.twitter.com/nNbgcXdTas
Meanwhile, Putin’s top team has accused the US of abandoning its attempts to negotiate a peace deal.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the States was “seemingly stepping back from the role of an objective mediator” and had “forgotten” about previous promises to move towards Putin’s stance.
The Russian dictator has insisted he will not end his illegal land grab unless Ukraine hands more of its own sovereign territory over.
Though that has consistently been a red line for Kyiv – and Putin already holds a fifth of Ukraine’s land – Trump appeared to entertain the idea last year.
Lavrov insisted that Russia would “focus on achieving the goals of the [invasion] on the basis that all hopes the US could be an honest mediator collapsed long ago”.
Putin did try to deploy his usual tactic of swaying Trump by phoning him the night before a large summit with EU and Ukrainian leaders earlier this month.
But the flattery from Russia appeared to have little effect on the US president shortly before the G7 summit, where he had a cosy chat with Zelenskyy.
It’s a notable shift from Trump’s actions less than a year ago, when he literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin for a one-to-one talk in Alaska.
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