President Donald Trump’s recent remarks — that Russia’s economy is in “BIG trouble” and that Ukraine can “WIN” — have injected an unexpected note of optimism into a war long defined by grinding losses and uncertainty. The comments, delivered after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, marked a striking departure: a U.S. leader openly entertaining the possibility of Ukrainian victory. Whether those words signal a durable shift in policy remains unclear, and analysts caution that rhetoric is not the same as strategy.
Still, the tonal change is notable after two successive U.S. administrations avoided the language of “winning” in this conflict. William Taylor, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, told Independence Avenue Media that the statement was unlike anything he has heard from Washington. “I haven’t heard any U.S. official — previous administration or this administration — make the claim that Ukraine could take back all the 1991 territory,” Taylor said, stressing the significance of both the language and the high-profile meeting that preceded it.
Taylor and other analysts see grounds for cautious optimism. Ukraine’s defense-industrial base is expanding rapidly, with surging drone production and broader domestic weapons manufacturing. Kyiv’s successful strikes on Russian refineries have also squeezed Moscow’s revenues. “The Ukrainians are doing pretty well. The Russians are struggling,” Taylor said, citing the twin pressures of attacks on refining capacity and declining export earnings.
Western backing, however, will remain decisive. Taylor urged Washington to support European plans to channel Russia’s frozen sovereign assets into military aid — structured as a loan to be repaid by Russia as reparations — a step he called “a clever move.” He also argued for tightened sanctions and faster weapons deliveries, including longer-range systems and Patriot batteries, to exploit Moscow’s vulnerabilities and strengthen Kyiv’s hand at a critical moment.
The following interview, recorded Sept. 25, has been edited for length and clarity.
Independence Avenue Media Editor in Chief Ia Meurmishvili: What do you make of President Trump’s post? That Russia’s economy is in “big trouble,” that Ukraine can “win”? The first time — at least as I remember — that the U.S. administration mentioned the word “win” in this context.
Atlantic Council Eurasia Center Fellow and former U.S. Ambassador William Taylor: It’s very interesting. I totally agree. I haven’t seen anything like that from either administration, either the previous administration or the current one, to talk about winning and talking about taking back all of the land — about going back to 1991 borders. This must have been a good meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, because apparently President Trump came out of that meeting and shortly thereafter sent out this post, which, as you say, had a couple of things in it. One was this expectation, the possibility that the Ukrainians could win and take back this territory, and also, as you just mentioned, talk about Russian weakness — talk about the economy is weak, it is militarily weak, it’s not doing well on the battlefield, and it didn’t do well on the battlefield at the beginning. So, it must have been an interesting conversation between President Trump and President Zelenskyy. Maybe it was reinforced by some briefings that President Trump got either in preparation for these meetings or after the meetings. But he did seem to be pretty sure that the Russian economy was doing poorly.
The Ukrainians have been contributing to that. They’ve been bombing refineries and have taken out a fifth of [Russia’s] refining capacity. There are lines at gas stations, there are falling revenues for exports. All to say that the Ukrainians are doing pretty well [and] the Russians are struggling. The Russians clearly were irritated by that post. Dmitri Medvedev, as usual, kind of piped up — kind of pathetic — but what it does show is the Russians heard it and were not pleased. And that’s a good thing.
Meurmishvili: Do you think this will continue this way? How do you think things can go on from here? Can we go back to the situation when, for example, Trump was calling Zelenskyy a dictator?
Taylor: You’re right, no one knows. No one can say for sure. What I think we can discern, though, is that there’s been a gradual trend of increasing support for Ukraine and even for President Zelenskyy, and a gradual expression of irritation — a series of expressions of irritation or frustration or anger from Trump about Putin.
And those two things have been going on for a couple of months. What we saw the past two days was an acceleration of that. It was a steep acceleration of those two trends.
That is, increased support for Ukraine and decreased support for Russia. There was one big change, which we’ve already talked about, and that is this issue of territory.
I haven’t heard any U.S. official, previous administration or this administration, make the claim that Ukraine could take back all the territory, [re-establishing] 1991 borders. You and I heard over the last weekend from some soldiers who were determined to take back all that territory. [Editor’s Note: Ambassador Taylor and Independence Avenue Media’s Ia Meurmishvili jointly attended Yalta European Strategy Conference in Kyiv in early September.] It might not have been the majority view in that room in Kyiv where we were, but there were certainly some soldiers and others who were determined that they would not give up any Ukrainian land to the Russians. So this is a good thing.
Meurmishvili: In the same post, President Trump said that with NATO and EU help — purchasing weapons and sending them to Ukraine, that Ukraine can basically win. Do you think this is a good path?
Taylor: I think the best path would be for the United States to be contributing to the purchase, to the provision of those weapons for Ukraine directly. The next best thing is what we’ve got now, and that is Europeans — a collection of rich countries, let’s be clear — buying weapons from U.S. manufacturers and providing them to the Ukrainians.
That can get the job done. Plus, the other thing you and I heard last weekend that was encouraging, I thought, was this new momentum behind the drive by the Europeans primarily, but supported by Americans, to use that $300 billion of Russian central bank assets that are frozen in Western banks. There have been some interesting ideas that the EU has come up with that would get around the legal back-and-forth, the legal skirmishing, the legal concerns about whether or not it’s okay under international law to seize these $300 billion that are in these banks and actually provide it to the Ukrainians.
Well, the Europeans have come up with an idea of a loan. They call it the Ukraine Reparation Loan. The idea is that if we use those funds, the $300 billion can be loaned to Ukraine for purchases of weapons, as an example, or after the war ends to help rebuild the country. But these funds would be loaned to the Ukrainians and would be paid back only when the Russians pay reparations. I think that’s a clever move. And it gets the money to Ukrainians to buy weapons right away.
Meurmishvili: And it seems that that idea, the one that you just described, has more traction than some others that we’ve heard.
Taylor: It’s really true, there have been a lot of concerns. This idea has been around for three and a half years, and it has been debated by international lawyers.
And even if the [many] international lawyers who say this is legal, this could be done, this is OK under international law — even if they’re right, it would [wind up] in court. Somebody would go to court if the European nations and the United States were to actually seize these funds from the banks. It would be tied up in court. This new solution, this clever idea of a loan to be paid back only when Russia pays reparation, I’m told that it gets around that legal problem, that this is cleaner from [the standpoint] of international law.
Meurmishvili: You were in Kyiv just a week ago, where you’ve been many times since the full-scale invasion. Do you see any sort of evolution of morale or how Ukraine is getting stronger militarily? What are your observations?
Taylor: Two issues. One is the last thing that you mentioned here, which are the Ukrainian military industrial capabilities have really blossomed, have really expanded. Their production — yes, of drones — is the headline and [perhaps] the most important component of this industrial expansion, but not the only one. Weapons the Ukrainians are using on the battlefield today: 40-to-50% of those weapons are manufactured in Ukraine. That’s incredible. The expansion of this capability — impressive!
Yes, the Europeans provide another 30%, and the Americans provide the last 20%, and some of that last 20% are the Patriot [air defense missiles] and more sophisticated weapons that are manufactured only in the United States. But nonetheless, this expansion of the capabilities of the Ukrainians, I think, has been very impressive. The second thing that struck me coming out of Kyiv last weekend was this dual track. On the one hand, the Ukrainians — and, frankly, the Europeans who want to keep the Americans on board, who want to keep President Trump on their side — they want to maintain support from the United States in all kinds of ways. Militarily on weapons, but [also] politically, economically, [in terms of] sanctions. They do want to be sure that the Americans in this administration are continuing to provide that kind of support in all those domains. That’s the one track.
But there’s another track, which is to make plans for when the first track doesn’t work. That is, there are concerns that the American policy could change or that the American policy is fine now but it might not be in the future. So this other track that the Ukrainians and the Europeans are on is that “we need to get ready to defend ourselves.” [The idea that] Ukrainians and Europeans need to be able to pursue this war, to manufacture the weapons [needed] to provide the military leadership in NATO or in this “coalition of the willing” that can provide the military support to Ukraine to stop the Russians in Ukraine. So there are two tracks. One is to try to keep the Americans on board. But second is, just in case, build up the capabilities on the European and Ukrainian side.
Meurmishvili: At the United Nations General Assembly, Zelenskyy briefed Trump on the situation on the battlefield. He said that about 1,000 Russian troops are surrounded right now by the Ukrainian forces. That reminded me of the time when Putin was telling Trump that Russians had surrounded Ukrainian soldiers and Trump wanted to save all of those surrounded. It’s a very interesting change of dynamics. Maybe, as you said, President Trump is now seeing that Russia is not advancing on the battlefield as Putin may have been telling him…
Taylor: Exactly right. And unfortunately, it’s not just Putin that was putting out this message that the Russians are on the move and the Ukrainians are falling back.
That was coming, yes, from a lot of reporting. It wasn’t true. The Ukrainians have been holding. What is true, of course, is the Russians have been grinding at incredible cost in terms of Russian lives, which Putin apparently doesn’t care about. But they’ve been taking out crossroads here and a small village there and a kilometer here. But they have not been winning. The Russians are not winning. They’re not even progressing very operationally, certainly not strategically. So there is that. And I think that is becoming clearer now. That was the storyline coming out that the Russians are on the move. Well, they’re not. And I think [this latest] combination of discussions and briefings may have dispelled that.
Meurmishvili: I’ve interviewed a number of people about Pokrovsk, a city that two years ago was “about to be taken by the Russians.” Two years on, Russia has not been able to take it. As a final question, I’d like to draw on your vast diplomatic experience. If you were advising President Trump right now, what would be your policy recommendation?
Taylor: I would recommend that he build on the advantage that he’s already described. President Trump has described a real advantage on part of the West, on part of Ukraine, on part of Europe, on part of the United States, on part of NATO, in the face of a Russian weakness. I would advise him to increase pressure on the Russians right now in a multitude of ways. You apply it in every economic way — sanctions, tariffs, more enforcement of the existing taxes that reduce the flow of funds into the Russian economy, which they then use to pursue the war. Starve the Russian economy and the Russian war machine of the resources that they need. Now is the time. The Russians are weak in that regard. That’s number one.
Number two: Trump has talked about [how if Ukrainians get the weapons they need], they can take back [territory]. Well, fine, Mr. President. They can do that, [so] they need the long-range weapons. They need the long-range weapons that we have. Give them what they need in terms of taking the fight to military targets in Russia, and give them as many of the Patriot systems as they can to protect their own cities and their soldiers. [Such that], on the military side, on the economic side — and then, of course, on the political side, this gets into the economics as well — push hard on this $300 billion [in frozen Russian assets]. Make this money available.
And push the Europeans. Europeans have got a great idea. They’re ready to go. It’s an open door. But, Mr. President, I would recommend that you really push to get this done now so that they can buy weapons from us. This is fine. Use those funds to be able to reinforce what we’re sending to the Ukrainians, and amp it up. So, more weapons. More volume. More range. More capabilities. Using the Russian money. I mean, this is Russian money that could be used right now. Those would be my recommendations.
