The TOI Correspondent from Washington: In a stunning departure from his previous calls for Ukraine to make territorial concessions to Russia, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday asserted that he now believes Kyiv can “fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form” with the support of the European Union and Nato. The turnaround came after Ukraine’s President Voldymyr Zelenskyy met Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, claiming among other things that India is “mostly with us,” even as Washington continued to pressure New Delhi to stop buying Russian oil which it says is funding Moscow’s war. There was no confirmation from New Delhi that India is in any way siding with Ukraine, although Finland’s President Alexander Stubb too said India is a very close ally of the European Union and the United States, while rejecting the idea it is going with Russia and China. “We cannot put India in the same basket (as Russia and China)…it is very important to engage India,” he said in a TV interview, describing it as an “emerging superpower.”Efforts to persuade New Delhi to align itself with the west came even as Trump outlined a remarkable shift in US position in a social media post in which he described Moscow’s three-and-a-half-year war effort as “aimless” and characterized Russia as a “paper tiger,” citing the economic strain and difficulties faced by its citizens. “I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union,….. would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that!” Trump wrote, hours after giving a go-ahead to Nato countries to shoot down Russian jets violating their air space. This change to a more aggressive stance marks a stark contrast to his earlier accommodative approach to Russia’s concerns, including suggesting that a resolution to the conflict would likely involve Ukraine ceding some territory. Weeks after hosting Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, the US President has begun expressing growing frustration with him for not moving towards peace, and his latest post took to mocking Moscow for its inability to conclude the war. “Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years, a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win. This is not distinguishing Russia,” Trump gibed. He also threatened a “very strong round of powerful tariffs” if Russia is not ready to negotiate an end to the war.Zelenskyy himself admitted in a Fox News interview that he was surprised by Trump’s turnaround, attributing it to the US President’s frustration with the “lying” from President Putin. In an ominous presentation that indicated the Russia-Ukraine war could take an even more serious turn, he went before the UNGA on Wednesday morning and virtually issued a new call to arms, saying it would be cheaper to defeat Russia now than prepare defenses against it in the long term as weapons were becoming more sophisticated.
