After a rocky 2025, top U.S. officials appear increasingly enthusiastic about Ukraine, potentially paving the way for stronger support—but a past littered with abrupt shifts in U.S. policy suggests that the White House may yet need convincing to turn words into action.
U.S. President Donald Trump has long been sour on Ukraine, telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he didn’t “have the cards” in a dramatic February 2025 meeting that preceded a brief cutoff of U.S. aid to Ukraine. In a draft for a G-7 statement commemorating the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion that month, the United States reportedly sought to remove references to Russia as being the “aggressor” state.
After a rocky 2025, top U.S. officials appear increasingly enthusiastic about Ukraine, potentially paving the way for stronger support—but a past littered with abrupt shifts in U.S. policy suggests that the White House may yet need convincing to turn words into action.
U.S. President Donald Trump has long been sour on Ukraine, telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he didn’t “have the cards” in a dramatic February 2025 meeting that preceded a brief cutoff of U.S. aid to Ukraine. In a draft for a G-7 statement commemorating the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion that month, the United States reportedly sought to remove references to Russia as being the “aggressor” state.
“Sometimes, when I speak to [U.S.] officials, they see Ukraine as a state that would not be able to survive a day or two without international support,” a foreign official working on military aid to Ukraine previously told Foreign Policy.
This year’s G-7 meeting, though, was different. Trump last week described Russia as the “offensive” party in the war and signed on to a pro-Ukraine statement. French President Emmanuel Macron separately described Trump as making a “real change in approach” on Ukraine.
Trump isn’t the only one in the administration who’s seemingly more pro-Ukraine. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in May said Ukraine had the strongest military in Europe and noted Russia’s high casualty rate in the war. “The Russians are losing five times as many soldiers a month as the Ukrainians are,” Rubio said. On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed that sentiment: “Ukrainians are holding their lines even in the face of sustained Russian assaults.”
Ostap Yarysh, a media advisor for the Ukraine advocacy group Razom, tied the shift in part to Ukraine’s battlefield success, in particular its medium– and long-range drone strikes. These strikes have challenged perceptions of Russian invulnerability by creating dramatic images of smoking wreckage in Moscow and St. Petersburg, with one strike sending up black plumes visible from a high-profile economic forum attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“They are very visual, so I think that has some effect on public perception,” Yarysh said. “Ukraine’s effective strikes speak more loudly and more powerful than any Russian propaganda.”
Prominent and influential Trump supporters have also recently coalesced around Ukraine, although it’s unclear to what extent their influence may extend into the U.S. government.
In recent weeks, far-right conservative influencer Laura Loomer has posted a stream of pro-Ukraine, anti-Russian content on social media, reacting in part to a visit to Russia by another far-right influencer, Candace Owens. Loomer has previously been influential in the White House through her ties to Trump, and she played a role in a purge of the National Security Council early in the Trump administration.
Meaghan Mobbs, the daughter of former Trump administration envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg who is herself a prominent conservative supporter of that country, told Foreign Policy that more could be done to message to Trump’s political base: “They’re quite open to being persuaded—but they’re not being messaged to,” she said.
A June 10 event on Russia organized by Independent Women, where Mobbs serves as a director, included experts from U.S. think tanks as well as MAGA figures, such as the head of the conservative media nonprofit PragerU, and Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel, who has claimed she was targeted by a Russian disinformation campaign.
Whether or not the rhetorical shift translates into policy, however, is another matter. Ukraine has been pressing for more Patriot air defense missiles as well as a resumption of key U.S. oil sanctions on Russia, which the U.S. temporarily lifted amid pressure on the global oil market due to the Iran war.
The Trump administration has so far not announced any new transfers of Patriot missiles. But last week, the U.S. Treasury Department did not renew a waiver that had temporarily lifted some sanctions on Russian energy, although it was unclear if this now meant a return to previous sanctions policy. The White House and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
Ukraine advocates, meanwhile, have seen similar shifts in U.S. rhetoric, only to be ultimately disappointed. In September 2025, after a meeting with Zelensky, Trump said Kyiv could “win all of Ukraine back in its original form,” with Vice President J.D. Vance later openly discussing the possible transfer of powerful long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. Trump then threw cold water on those plans following a call with Putin.
And while the White House has inched closer to being more pro-Ukrainian, it has also historically refrained from taking a tough line against Moscow, a rhetorical nuance that may point to a hesitancy to push Russia too hard.
One European official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive talks, recalled asking the White House to publicly criticize Russia in response to one of its actions related to the war in Ukraine. The official said the White House declined, fearing it could harm U.S.-led peace talks. A second European official, likewise speaking on condition of anonymity, said that White House officials had privately conveyed that they were unwilling to publicly criticize Russia out of fear that doing so would harm negotiations.
Lower-level U.S. officials have recently moved closer to denouncing Russia for its attacks on Ukraine, though. On June 8, a top U.S. official to the United Nations called out Russia for strikes on Ukraine, calling the war a “strategic disaster” for Moscow. On June 15, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv blasted Russia’s attack on a historically and religiously important Kyiv monastery, calling it “unacceptable.”
Still, the message is mixed: After a Russian drone hit a Romanian apartment building near the Ukrainian border in May, injuring two citizens of a NATO ally, the U.S. ambassador to NATO declared on X that the United States “will defend every inch of NATO territory,” but he did not say from whom.
On Wednesday, the same day as the G-7 letter declaring “unwavering support for Ukraine,” Trump declined to say who was more responsible for the war: “I don’t want to comment on that because I’m trying to get it settled,” he said.
