US President Trump: Zelenskyy doing ‘pretty well’ in war against Russia

US President Donald Trump has said that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is doing “pretty well” in Ukraine’s war against Russia. Trump, who previously claimed the Ukrainian president lacked the “cards” to win, told reporters in the Oval Office that Zelenskyy was “holding his own, at least. A lot of people dying on both sides, but I think he’s doing pretty well.” Analysts note that Ukraine is increasingly holding up well on the battlefield, but its cities still face deadly Russian attacks.

Trump and Zelenskyy recently met during the G7 summit in France, where leaders agreed to intensify pressure on Russia to end more than four years of war. European allies want to send “a strong signal of support for Ukraine” at the NATO summit in Ankara in July, Germany’s chancellor said as he hosted the leaders of France, Britain, Italy, and Poland. “The message to Russia is: Ukraine remains strong,” Friedrich Merz said at a joint press event in Berlin on Wednesday after the European leaders had also spoken via video link with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Merz stressed that the German government “proposes that we, as European NATO allies, give Kyiv a strong financing commitment” and that “Europe’s support is not wavering.” The summit, set for July 7-8 in the Turkish capital, will be attended by leaders from 32 nations, including Trump.

Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine will attack facilities Russia uses for the war, as Kyiv expands strikes on energy infrastructure to try to force Moscow into talks. “I instructed our intelligence services and military to act pre-emptively against facilities Russia uses to expand its war effort,” the Ukrainian president said in his evening address on Wednesday. On Wednesday, Ukrainian drones knocked out power in the largest city in Russian-held Crimea and targeted facilities in central and southern Russia.

A Russian strike on Ukraine’s southern Kherson region killed two mine disposal experts from the Oslo-based charity Norwegian People’s Aid, the Kherson region’s governor said. The strike occurred on Wednesday in the village of Novopetrivka. “Four other specialists were wounded,” Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram. The affected staff were Ukrainian citizens.

Additionally, the deputy leader of Russia’s Yabloko party, which opposes the war in Ukraine, was convicted of spreading lies about the Russian army and jailed for seven years. Maxim Kruglov, 39, a former lawmaker in Moscow’s city legislature, was arrested in October and charged over two Telegram posts he made in 2022 criticizing the war in Ukraine. Kruglov pleaded not guilty and told the court: “In essence, this is a ban on dissent.”