Sept. 24, 2025, 5:17 PM EDTBy Peter Nicholas and Dan De LuceWASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is suddenly bullish when it comes to Ukraine’s chances of repelling Russia’s invasion and regaining all its territory, yet the shift in rhetoric means little unless he is prepared to ramp up pressure on the Kremlin, diplomats and foreign officials say.Thus far, Trump hasn’t taken these essential steps, they added.Trump’s social media post Tuesday upended the conventional thinking about his view of the war, now in its fourth year. Back in February, he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he didn’t have the “cards” in a peace negotiation and that his country was in “big trouble.”Now, Trump says that Russia is the one that is in “big economic trouble” and that its failure to swiftly conquer its smaller neighbor has revealed it to be a “paper tiger.”“After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it 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,” he wrote in his post Tuesday. “Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” Trump added. “This is not distinguishing Russia.”Trump’s aim in releasing the statement was to exert “maximum public pressure on Russia to get them to the table for a deal” to end the war, according to a senior Trump administration official.Next steps will depend on how Russia responds, said the official, who did not lay out any specific policy changes happening now.There are different ways to construe Trump’s statement. One is that he’s grown tired of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s persistence in shelling Ukraine and is prepared to step up coercive measures aimed at getting Russia to pull back.“Trump concluded Putin is not interested in peace,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Trump confidant, said in an interview Wednesday. Calling Trump’s post and his speech to the United Nations General Assembly a “game-changer,” Graham added, “There was a belief in Moscow that Trump is on their side, but the president made it clear that Ukraine will have all it needs as long as it needs.”Another interpretation is that Trump is done with what’s proved a futile effort to midwife a peace deal. Instead, Trump is leaving it to the combatants and European nations to resolve the war as best they can. “Good luck to all!” Trump wrote at the end of his post.Nothing in Trump’s post committed the U.S. to more aggressive action on Ukraine’s behalf. He did not say he would impose secondary sanctions on China for its economic support of Russia. Nor did he pledge to slap new sanctions on Russia. Rather, he said the U.S. would continue something it is already doing: selling weapons to NATO that the alliance is in turn supplying to Ukraine.Trump’s message was accurate in that he noted that Russia’s economy is under strain from international sanctions while endorsing Ukraine’s territorial integrity, said Evelyn Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute think tank. But there was no indication that the president was ready to take measures bolstering Ukraine’s position, either by squeezing Russia or stepping up U.S. military aid to Ukraine, she said.“In terms of concrete action, that’s the missing thing,” Farkas said. “He hasn’t changed anything he’s doing.”Trump’s Truth Social post appears to reflect his growing frustration over what he sees as Russia’s intransigence, and his recognition of what European governments have been saying for some time: that Moscow is struggling to turn the tide in a grinding conflict.“But I don’t think he’s willing to do much about it,” one source close to Zelenskyy’s government said.In a further sign that America’s posture remains largely the same, there was no indication that the White House had notified allies or Ukraine that U.S. policy had changed, according to three Western officials and a source close to Ukraine. At present, allies do not anticipate that Trump’s new assessment will result in concrete action such as a weapons package for Ukraine, the sources said.One Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the message to Europe seemed to be: “Over to you.”“I read it [Trump’s social media post] as him trying to back out of this whole thing,” said John Bolton, who was White House national security adviser in Trump’s first term and has become an outspoken critic of the president. “He’s not saying the U.S. is doing anything new or different from what it’s doing now, i.e., selling weapons and ammunition and things to Europe.”“This is not, ‘I’m going to sanction Russia. I’m going to arm Ukraine. I’m going to do this or that.’ This is, ‘I’m sure glad the Europeans and NATO are going to help out,’” Bolton added. (The FBI searched Bolton’s home last month as part of an investigation into classified records. An attorney for Bolton has said that the former official did not keep or store anything improper.)It would be a mistake to discount the import of Trump’s statement, others said. A president who has long called for warmer relations between Washington and Moscow is now publicly belittling Russia’s military machine. Those living in Russia’s shadow welcomed Trump’s affirmation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.“This is remarkable,” said Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Estonian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. “I see it probably as the first time that the U.S. president said that Ukraine should win the war and this victory means the liberation of the occupied territories.”One Western official whose country is a member of the so-called Coalition of the Willing that supports Ukraine said: “We have always been saying that Russia has been weaker than anyone thought. We have been saying they have been weakened by the sanctions and weaker than what some think and weaker than even Putin thinks. We fully agree with this analysis.”Heartening as Trump’s message was to Ukraine’s allies, an about-face could come at any point. Trump has a history of making pronouncements that don’t always hold up.Heading to a summit meeting with Putin in Alaska last month, Trump said he wanted a ceasefire. He emerged from the meeting with no ceasefire, saying the new goal was a broader peace agreement — an outcome that is not in sight. Moscow has expanded its drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, killing a record number of civilians.Since taking office, Trump has threatened to impose new sanctions on Russia if it doesn’t negotiate in good faith, and issued two deadlines to Moscow that have come and gone without consequences.The president mentioned a new deadline on Tuesday at a bilateral meeting at the United Nations with Zelenskyy. When reporters asked Trump if he still trusts Putin, he said, “I’ll let you know in about a month from now.”Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland and a fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, said in an interview: “I’m pleased by the sentiment of support” for Ukraine.He added: “I don’t want to be snarky or cynical, but we’ve seen for many months Trump tiptoe up to the line of action, and then slide away from it.”“We see a lot of words from Trump. We need to see an actual decision.”Peter NicholasPeter Nicholas is a senior White House reporter for NBC News.Dan De LuceDan De Luce is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit. Julie Tsirkin, Garrett Haake and Gordon Lubold contributed.