In a dramatic shift from his earlier hands-off rhetoric, US President Donald Trump privately urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to step up strikes inside Russian territory, even asking him directly if Ukraine could hit Moscow and St. Petersburg, if given the right weapons, reported the Financial Times.“Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow? . . . Can you hit St Petersburg too?” Trump asked during a July 4 call with Zelenskyy, FT reported, citing two people briefed on the conversation.Zelenskyy reportedly replied, “Absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons.”The provocative exchange followed a tense call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin just a day earlier, which the US president later described as “bad,” the sources told the British daily. Trump’s call with Zelenskyy is being seen as a direct response to Putin’s continued refusal to engage in ceasefire talks proposed by Washington.This behind-the-scenes conversation highlights a growing frustration within the Trump administration about Moscow’s intransigence and marks a sharp departure from Trump’s previous campaign promise to end US entanglements in foreign wars. It also adds a surprising layer to his longstanding image as a leader cautious about confronting Russia.According to the two individuals familiar with the call, Trump signalled support for Ukraine launching long-range strikes, describing the approach as a way to “make them (Russians) feel the pain” and force the Kremlin to negotiate.While it remains unclear whether the US will actually provide long-range weapons, a Western official familiar with the matter said the conversation reflects an emerging mood among Ukraine’s Western backers — one that favours deeper, more aggressive strikes on Russian soil to “bring the war to Muscovites”. This sentiment, the official noted, is quietly gaining traction among American policymakers as well.Meanwhile, neither the White House nor the Ukrainian president’s office has responded to requests for comment on the report.Trump announced new weapons for Ukraine on Monday and threatened to hit buyers of Russian exports with sanctions unless Russia agrees a peace deal in 50 days, a major shift in policy brought on by frustration with Moscow. Sitting side-by-side with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters that he was disappointed in Russian President Putin. “My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,” said Trump, who indicated that Putin had repeatedly backed out of deals to bring an end to the three-year war with Ukraine. “He’s fooled a lot of people,” Trump said of Putin, who he called a “tough guy.” “He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden – he didn’t fool me,” Trump said. Trump then said that billions of dollars in weapons would be distributed to Ukraine. “We’re going to make top-of-the-line weapons, and they’ll be sent to Nato,” Trump said, adding that Washington’s Nato allies would pay for the weapons. The weapons would include Patriot air defence missiles, which Ukraine has urgently sought to defend its cities from Russian air strikes. “It’s a full complement with the batteries,” Trump said. “We’re going to have some come very soon, within days… a couple of the countries that have Patriots are going to swap over and will replace the Patriots with the ones they have.” Some or all of 17 Patriot batteries ordered by other countries could be sent to Ukraine “very quickly”, he said. His threat to impose so-called secondary sanctions on Russia, if carried out, would be a major shift in Western sanctions policy. Lawmakers from both political parties in the US are pushing for a bill that would authorise such measures, targeting other countries that buy Russian oil. Throughout the more than three-year-old war, Western countries have cut off most of their own financial ties to Moscow, but have held back from taking steps that would restrict Russia from selling its oil elsewhere. That has allowed Moscow to continue earning hundreds of billions of dollars from shipping oil to buyers such as China and India.
