Moscow has brushed off a shift in tone from Donald Trump, who suggested Ukraine could win back all its territory from Russia, which the US president said was a weak “paper tiger” in dire economic trouble.
Trump’s comments, in which he also said Russia had been “fighting aimlessly for three and a half years”, were in contrast to the red-carpet treatment he laid out for Vladimir Putin at a summit in Alaska last month.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, attributed the comments to the fact Trump had just met the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York.
In an interview with RBC radio, Peskov said: “Of course, President Trump heard Zelenskyy’s version of events. And apparently at this point, this version is the reason for the assessment we heard.”
Trump has a history of repeating information that the last world leader has told him during meetings, and often changes his position later.
Peskov said the Russian army was making gains in Ukraine, albeit slowly. Putin “has repeatedly stated this – we are moving forward very carefully to minimise losses … These are very deliberate actions,” he said.
Peskov dismissed the description of Russia as a “paper tiger”, saying his country was a bear, the national animal. “Russia maintains its resilience. Russia maintains macroeconomic stability,” he said.
In later statements, the Kremlin said the war was not aimless, and it appeared to attempt to placate Trump by saying the process of restoring relations between Russia and the US was proceeding “much more slowly than desired”.
On Tuesday Trump gave an upbeat assessment of Ukraine’s prospects in the war, claiming Russia was in big economic trouble. It was one of the strongest statements of support he had given to Kyiv in recent months.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said: “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.”
He said if the Russian public found out what was “really going on with this war”, the Ukrainians could launch a counteroffensive in which they would “take back all the territory occupied by Russia – and, who knows, maybe even go further than that”.
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Zelenskyy hailed Trump’s intervention, saying it represented a “big shift” from the US president.
Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has had a significant impact on the Russian economy, with the finance ministry on Wednesday proposing raising the rate of value-added tax by two percentage points to 22%.
Also on Tuesday, Trump berated European countries for “embarrassing” purchases of Russian oil and gas, demanding they “immediately cease all energy purchases from Russia” or “otherwise we are all wasting a lot of time”.
The EU has sharply reduced its consumption of Russian oil and gas since 2022 and bought 19% of its gas and 3% of oil from Russia in 2024, down from 45% and 27% before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Tuesday that she and Trump during a bilateral meeting at the UN had “agreed on the need to cut Russia’s revenues from fossil fuels, and fast”. In her account of the meeting, von der Leyen said: “By 2027, Europe will have turned the page on Russian fossil fuels for good.”
Last week von der Leyen announced plans to phase out Russian liquified natural gas purchases by 2027, a year earlier than planned. The commission also announced plans to expand sanctions to 118 vessels in Russia’s shadow fleet, poorly maintained tankers that are used to transport Russian oil to foreign buyers evading western price restrictions.
But the EU has not yet ended an exemption from buying Russian oil that was granted to Hungary and Slovakia in 2022. Both central European countries have rejected the plan to phase out Russian fossil fuels despite pressure from Trump, an ally of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán.
The EU needs unanimity to agree on sanctions, although measures to restrict trade can be approved by a majority. It remains unclear when and how the latest proposals will be agreed, with senior EU diplomats expected to discuss the plans in the coming days.