‘He thought Ukraine was going to lose’: French President Macron says Trump changed his view on Russia’s war in Ukraine
French President Emmanuel Macron said Donald Trump believed Ukraine would lose the war with Russia when he returned to the White House in early 2025 — but has since changed his assessment.
“He thought Ukraine was going to lose. Everything went badly in the Oval Office during the meeting with Zelensky,” Macron said in an interview with France TV. He added that the the Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage raised fears of a deal under which Ukraine would be required to surrender territories Russia had not even captured.
After the Anchorage summit, Macron said, European leaders traveled to Washington to persuade Trump that such terms were unacceptable.
We have come a very long way since then. And that path is first and foremost a victory for Ukrainians, their capabilities and their persuasiveness. President Trump saw that everything he had been told — that [Ukrainians] would fall, that they would not survive the winter — turned out to be false.
On June 16–17, a G7 summit was held in France. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attended the summit. He met with Trump and Macron.
At the summit, Politico reported, Trump urged other G7 leaders to help the U.S. with demining the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for support for Ukraine.
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