COLUMN: Trump says Zelensky is holding up — and Moscow is genuinely worried

COLUMN: Trump says Zelensky is holding up — and Moscow is genuinely worried

Introduction: The moment Trump changed his tone

A sentence dropped in the Oval Office

On June 25, 2026, in the hushed corridor of the Oval Office, Donald Trump said something few observers saw coming. Asked about the state of the conflict in Ukraine, he declared that Volodymyr Zelensky was doing "pretty well" and that he was "holding his own" against Russia. Two adverbs. Not a diplomatic declaration of war. But in the context of four years of war and a Trump-Zelensky relationship built on repeated public friction, those words carry weight.

This is not a 180-degree reversal. Trump remains Trump: unpredictable, capable of walking anything back tomorrow, as susceptible to flattery from adversaries as from allies. But the words were spoken. And Moscow heard them.

The Évian-les-Bains dinner that changed everything

What the Financial Times reported

A few days before the public statement, the Financial Times revealed that at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, Trump had been "hugely impressed and enthusiastic" at a private dinner with Zelensky. The two men discussed Ukrainian military results, drones, and deep strikes on Russian territory. According to FT sources, Trump listened — genuinely listened — for more than an hour.

That is not trivial. Trump rarely listens to people he doesn't respect. The meeting in Évian marked a turning point in the American perception of Zelensky as a valid strategic interlocutor — no longer a supplicant, but a commander-in-chief who delivers.

Zelensky's logic: prove before you ask

Since the start of 2026, Zelensky adopted a precise doctrine: show results before making demands. The 13 strikes on Russian defense industries recorded in June alone, the FP-5 Flamingo drones reaching factories in Volgograd, the 660 drones launched in a single night — all of it speaks for itself. No pleading required. Numbers convince better than speeches.

And Trump, a businessman above all else, understands results. There is an arithmetic of war he reads better than most conventional politicians: who strikes, who advances, who holds. In June 2026, the answer was unambiguous.

Lavrov infuriated, Moscow destabilized

The Russian reaction: official contempt masking real nervousness

In Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov publicly dismissed Trump's statements, calling them "empty rhetoric." But behind the official denials, according to Semafor, the pro-Ukraine tone from Washington since the Alaska meeting with Witkoff in May 2026 is "unnerving Moscow." Russian diplomats have begun sounding out their European counterparts to assess the true state of American-Ukrainian relations.

What troubles the Kremlin is not so much American support in itself — they expected that — but the new consistency in Washington's message. Trump had long been Russia's wild card: unpredictable, potentially detachable from NATO. If that wild card becomes a stable backer of Ukraine, Putin's roadmap toward peace on his own terms collapses.

The Alaska precedent: when Witkoff surprised Moscow

In May 2026, during indirect talks in Alaska, American envoy Steve Witkoff adopted a tone considerably firmer than Moscow had anticipated. The Russians were expecting an accommodating intermediary; they found someone who set conditions. That precedent shifted the Kremlin's assessment of where Trump was heading.

Since then, the signals have been stacking up: continued support for weapons deliveries, no questioning of sanctions, and now these publicly flattering statements about Zelensky. For Moscow, each new signal in the same direction reinforces an uncomfortable conclusion: Trump will not hand them Ukraine.

The mechanics of Trump-Zelensky trust

Why Trump now respects Zelensky

The relationship between Trump and Zelensky has gone through phases. In 2019, there was the phone call that nearly cost Trump his presidency during the first impeachment. In 2022–2023, Trump openly criticized the billions sent to Kyiv. In 2025, tensions over the terms of any negotiation. Then came 2026 — and something changed.

What changed was proof. Zelensky delivered quantifiable military results: 1,400,000 Russian soldiers put out of action since the start of the war according to Ukrainian data, deep strikes on Russian defense factories, a drone industry doubling its output every quarter. Trump can present that as evidence that American aid is working. It's politically usable.

The G7 as a recalibration stage

The G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains served as a theater of recalibration. Zelensky was not there to beg — he was there to present results. The other G7 leaders watched the dynamic. What Trump said in public was not a slip: it was a deliberate validation of a relationship being rebuilt on new, more pragmatic, less sentimental foundations.

For European allies, this recalibration is good news — but also a warning. Ukraine succeeded where several European capitals had failed: convincing Trump on his own terms, not theirs.

The doctrine of proof through facts

Zelensky speaks Trump's language

To convince Trump, you don't talk about democracy, international law, or Western values. You talk about results, yields, return on investment. Zelensky understood that — perhaps better than anyone else in 2026. Every American military delivery is presented in detailed reports showing its concrete impact on the ground.

The FP-5 Flamingo drones, the strikes on Russian refineries in the 40-day operation approved at the end of June, the Storm Shadow missiles destroying semiconductor factories in Voronezh — all of it constitutes a performance file that Trump can grasp immediately. That's the language he speaks.

The economic argument of war

There is also an economic dimension that Trump factors in: if Ukraine holds, if it strikes, if it weakens the Russian war machine, it absorbs a threat to the Western world without the United States having to send its own soldiers. From an American strategic standpoint, it's a form of genius: outsource the defense of the Western order to a partner that pays the price in blood itself.

That reasoning likely weighed heavily during the private dinner in Évian. Zelensky framed it in Trump's own terms: Ukraine is the cheapest insurance policy America has ever bought. Not in those exact words — but the idea was there.

What Europe must take away from this

The European paradox

Europe spent years explaining to Trump why he should support Ukraine for moral and geopolitical reasons. It didn't convince him. Zelensky used drones and precision strikes as arguments. He convinced him. That contrast deserves study in every European chancellery.

Europe's problem with Trump is not a values problem — it's a language problem. Europeans keep talking in terms of alliances, treaties, obligations. Trump talks in terms of transactions, results, comparative advantage. Until that translation gap is bridged, Washington will be more easily moved by a commander-in-chief who burns factories than by endless summits on defense budgets.

The lesson of the Évian dinner for European capitals

What European diplomats need to understand is that partnership with Trump is built in facts, not declarations. Zelensky presented satellite images of successful strikes, documented Russian casualty figures, lists of neutralized targets. That's not a speech — it's an execution report.

Europe should learn to present its contribution to Atlantic security the same way: not in terms of political commitment, but in terms of deployed capabilities, conducted strikes, held lines. That's the only register this American administration genuinely listens to.

Ukraine in Trump's mind: the evolution of a perception

From 2019 to 2026: the distance traveled

Seven years ago, Trump saw Ukraine as territory for domestic political maneuvering — the place you call to ask a foreign president for favors. Today, he sees a military partner producing results he can leverage. This is not a moral transformation. It's a transformation of interest.

That evolution was fed by concrete facts: Ukrainian resistance since February 24, 2022, drone performance, strikes on Russian territory, and Zelensky's capacity to remain standing despite the bombs, despite the pressure, despite the presumed betrayals of certain allies. Trump respects resistance. He respects passive victims less.

The Zelensky variable in the American calculation

There is also a personal dimension: Trump likes winners. He liked Zelensky when he thought Ukraine would lose quickly — it let him prepare a clean exit. Now that Ukraine holds, that the strikes land, that pressure on Russia is real, Zelensky belongs to the category of people who "don't lose." And Trump always associates with people who don't lose.

That logic is fragile — it depends on the continuity of Ukrainian military results. But for now, the momentum is favorable. And in Trumpian politics, the moment is everything.

The signal sent to Beijing and Tehran

More than a statement about Ukraine

Trump's statement about Zelensky is not just a statement about Ukraine. It is read in Beijing, in Tehran, in Pyongyang. It says: Washington is watching who holds, who strikes, who delivers results. That's not a guarantee of eternal support — but it's a signal that alignment with the West's adversaries carries real costs.

China, which supports Russia economically while dodging sanctions, is watching this episode closely. If Trump consolidates his support for Ukraine, the cost-benefit calculation of Chinese backing for Moscow gets more complicated. Beijing does not want to be on the wrong side of an American administration that has decided who it backs.

Iran and North Korea in the equation

Iran continues delivering Shahed drones to Russia. North Korea sends soldiers to die in Russia, cannon fodder for the Kremlin. Both actors are watching what Trump does or doesn't do. If Washington sends a clear signal of support for Ukraine, that raises the cost of association with Russia for sanctioned regimes.

This is not a coherent foreign policy — Trump generally doesn't produce one. But the effects of a positive statement about Zelensky ripple far beyond the immediate context in which it was made.

What Zelensky obtained without asking for it

Recognition as a diplomatic resource

In modern wars, international recognition is a resource as real as ammunition. When the president of the United States publicly says your commander-in-chief is "holding his own," it affects how your position is perceived in every capital that looks to Washington as a reference point.

Countries still hesitating to deliver advanced weapons to Ukraine — some NATO members on the southern flank, some Asian partners — recalibrate their analysis when they hear Trump speak positively about Zelensky. It's not automatic, but it's real.

Peace negotiation from a position of strength

For any future peace negotiation, Zelensky now arrives with significantly stronger American political capital. When serious talks begin — if they begin — the fact that Trump publicly acknowledged Ukrainian performance gives Kyiv a position of strength it didn't have at the start of the year.

Russia only negotiates with those it perceives as weakened. The more Zelensky appears solid in Trump's eyes, the greater the pressure on Putin to negotiate seriously. That's no guarantee of peace — but it's one more lever in a file where every lever counts.

The fragility of this support

Trump tomorrow can contradict Trump today

It would be naive to conclude that Trump's support for Zelensky is now locked in and stable. Trump has a long history of sharp reversals, contradictory statements within 48 hours, relationships that flip with the day's news. The June 25, 2026 statement is a positive signal — not a guarantee.

If Ukrainian military results slow, if a Russian offensive succeeds, if Putin presents Trump with an enticing economic offer, the calculation can change. Zelensky knows this. That's exactly why the 40-day operation against Russian installations was launched precisely now — to capitalize on the window of American support.

American dependence as a structural risk

More fundamentally, Ukraine's dependence on the moods of a single American president is a structural risk that Zelensky is working to reduce. Bilateral partnerships with European countries, direct deliveries of Patriot interceptor drones, weapons production agreements — all of this aims to diversify support beyond American backing alone.

But in the immediate term, it is Washington that matters most. And for now, Washington is sending positive signals. Zelensky capitalizes on them. That's the only reasonable decision.

Zelensky, the man who refuses to lose

The profile of an atypical commander-in-chief

Since February 24, 2022, when everyone told him to flee, Zelensky has built a rare political presence in contemporary history: a leader who stayed, who fought, who made mistakes and kept going regardless. That's not propaganda — it's a fact documented by years of reporting.

That presence has weight. When Trump says Zelensky is "holding his own," he is implicitly acknowledging something few modern politicians would manage: leading a country under bombs, maintaining functioning institutions, negotiating with inconsistent allies, all while commanding an army advancing against every initial expectation.

Resistance as geopolitical capital

Ukrainian resistance is not merely moral — it has become concrete geopolitical capital. It has demonstrated that the Russian army is not invincible. It has weakened Moscow's defense industrial machine beyond what analysts predicted in 2022. It has compelled Europe to revise its defense budgets in ways it hadn't for thirty years.

And now, it is even convincing Trump. That last result may be the most improbable of the four.

The 40-day operation in this context

Strike while the support holds

On June 25, 2026, the same day Trump praised Zelensky, Zelensky approved a 40-day operation targeting Russian refineries, fuel depots, and logistics installations. The timing is not coincidental. When American support strengthens, that's the moment to act — before the wind shifts.

The preliminary results of the operation — the Ufa refineries hit, the Norsi refinery in Nizhny Novgorod struck, the Krasnodar oil depot damaged — will be presented to Washington as further proof that Ukraine strikes hard and strikes accurately. The cycle feeds itself.

Economic pressure on Russia as a complementary strategy

Depriving Russia of fuel means depriving its tanks, supply trucks, and fighter jets of the one resource without which no army functions. It also strikes the Russian economy where it is most vulnerable: the hydrocarbon exports that finance the war.

For Trump, this economic dimension is particularly compelling. Weakening Russia's export capacity also shifts market balances in oil — a variable the American administration monitors closely.

What this column is not

Not premature triumphalism

I am not writing that the war is won. I am not writing that Trump has converted into an eternal ally of Ukraine. I am not writing that Putin will fold tomorrow. The situation remains grave, Ukrainian losses are real, and the 241 clashes recorded on the front on June 27, 2026 are a reminder that the violence doesn't de-escalate on the strength of a dinner in Évian.

What I am writing is that something shifted. A signal was sent. And in a war where diplomatic signals matter as much as shells, that signal deserves to be named with precision — not crushed under reflexive skepticism or inflated by blind enthusiasm.

War as a system: reading signals without distorting them

This war is a complex system with dozens of variables — military, diplomatic, economic, internal to each country involved. Trump's statement is one of those variables. It doesn't determine everything. But it influences other variables: Ukrainian morale, Russia's reading of the situation, the position of hesitant allies.

Reading complex systems without oversimplifying them is what serious analysis demands. And serious analysis is saying right now: the Trump-Zelensky dynamic just shifted in a positive direction. That's not everything. That's not nothing. It's real.

The information war Kyiv is winning

Narrative and ground reality: two simultaneous fronts

Two wars are unfolding simultaneously: the physical war on Ukrainian soil, and the narrative war in world capitals. Zelensky understood long ago that he had to win both. Trump's statement is a victory in the second war — perhaps as significant as some victories in the first.

The Kremlin has invested heavily in the information war since 2014, trying to convince Western public opinion that Ukraine was corrupt, ungovernable, a waste of resources. Those years of disinformation now run up against a simple counter-narrative: Zelensky holds, results are documented, Trump acknowledges it.

The story being built despite the bombs

While Iranian Shahed drones fall on Ukrainian cities, while Russian ballistic missiles hunt power plants, Ukraine is building a narrative of resistance and competence that transcends sympathy to reach respect. Those are not the same thing. Sympathy fades. Respect generates alliances.

What Trump expressed at Évian looks more like respect than sympathy. And in Trumpian politics, respect translates into concrete acts: continued support, export licenses, access to military technologies. That's why two words spoken in a White House corridor carry more weight than ten UN resolutions.

Conclusion: One word from Trump, a ripple across the world

The power of presidential words

An American president's words travel differently than those of any other leader. They trigger policy revisions in dozens of chancelleries. They shift market expectations, allied calculations, adversarial strategies. When Trump says Zelensky is "holding his own," he is not merely commenting on a situation — he is modifying its parameters.

For Kyiv, this signal arrives at the right moment. For Moscow, it arrives at the wrong one. For Europe, it should serve as a lesson in how to build a partnership with an American administration that only responds to the language of results. And for Ukraine, it confirms a truth Zelensky has always known: the best diplomacy is conducted on the ground, with concrete results that speak for themselves.

What comes next

The 40-day operation continues. Drones fly. Factories burn. Russian soldiers die by the thousands — 1,250 on June 27 alone. Zelensky holds. Trump acknowledges it. And Putin, for the first time in a long while, can't read the ally he had counted on most.

That's enough for today. Tomorrow will be another day.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Editorial positioning

This column is grounded in facts reported by The Guardian, the Financial Times, and Semafor during the final week of June 2026. All quoted statements are attributed to their original sources. No scenes were invented, no dialogue reconstructed.

Declared limits and biases

This text is pro-Ukrainian in its editorial stance. That positioning is acknowledged and declared. It does not mean every Ukrainian claim is taken at face value without verification — but the editorial sympathy for the resistance of a people under attack is explicit. Readers seeking absolute neutrality will find it elsewhere.

Sources

Primary sources

The Guardian — Zelensky "doing pretty well against Russia," declares Trump — June 25, 2026

Euromaidan Press — Trump told Zelensky he was impressed by Ukraine's battlefield results, FT reports — June 24, 2026

Secondary sources

Semafor — US pro-Ukraine tone unnerves Moscow — June 23, 2026

United24 Media — Ukraine's FP-5 Flamingo missiles strike factory behind Russia's Iskander and Yars launchers — June 27, 2026

Ukrainska Pravda — Frontline update, 241 clashes June 27 — June 28, 2026

Euronews — Ukraine launches 40-day operation to pressure Russia to end the war — June 26, 2026