Ukrainians given real boost by rattling of Kremlin cage

Trump has switched the outlook of Kyiv from despondency towards the notion of outright victory

- writes Sam Kiley

Donald Trump has made a unique and sudden intellectual contribution to the future of Ukraine and European defence, shifting the debate away from an assumption that Kyiv must negotiate or die, to a belief that it could destroy the Kremlin's army.

This remarkable volte-face is being seized upon in Europe with as much vigour as was evident in the effort to look away when Trump backed Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, or when he threatened to invade Denmark and Canada.

Trump says all kinds of stuff. Much of it, like his attacks on the UK after he was feted by its king, are politely ignored by a government keen to keep him onside - or at least not drive him further towards the dark side.

But after meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, he posted on his social media: “... after seeing the Economic trouble [the war] is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.

“... Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act.”

He made no commitment to help Ukraine do that. But his statement shifted the entire debate among Ukraine's allies, away from despondency towards the notion of outright victory.

No other Western leader has spelt out more starkly the desire to see Russia defeated in Ukraine.

For the past six months, the focus has been on how to get Ukraine to agree a ceasefire that allows for the loss of about a fifth of its territory in return for peace underwritten by (pretty feeble) Western military assurances.

Europe moved fast to cement Trump's off-the-cuff response into a wider policy.