Diplomatic — 2026-06-25
Trump Says Zelensky Doing Pretty Well Ahead of NATO Summit Talks
BLUFRutte's public crediting of U.S. aid for Ukrainian gains gives Trump a domestic ownership stake that makes a bilateral with Zelensky at the Ankara summit by July 9 likely .
At a White House meeting with NATO Secretary General Rutte on June 24, Trump told reporters Zelensky was "doing pretty well" and "holding his own," while acknowledging "a lot of people dying on both sides"
Analysis
Rutte's deliberate public attribution of Ukrainian battlefield improvement to U.S. assistance gives Trump a political incentive ahead of Ankara: sustaining support lets Washington claim credit for outcomes Trump has already praised in open session. A Trump-Zelensky bilateral on the sidelines of the July 7-8 Ankara summit islikely before the summit closes. Confidence in that assessment is moderate: convergent pre-summit signaling from both principals and Rutte's explicit framing are strong indicators, though bilateral scheduling at multilateral summits remains subject to last-minute sequence changes.
Rutte's deliberate public attribution of Ukrainian battlefield improvement to U.S. assistance gives Trump a political incentive ahead of Ankara: sustaining support lets Washington claim credit for outcomes Trump has already praised in open session. A Trump-Zelensky bilateral on the sidelines of the July 7-8 Ankara summit is