Former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian leader Vladimir Putin Photo collage by Anastasia Savelenko for Forbes Ukraine
Donald Trump has gone from planning a meeting with Vladimir Putin to tightening sanctions against Russia in a week. How will the new round of US diplomacy develop? Spoiler – the topic of the Tomahawks is not closed, and the Trump-Zelensky meeting was not as terrible as the media described it
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After the end of the war in the Gaza Strip, US President Donald Trump became more active on the track of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
In less than a week, he managed to talk to Russian leader Vladimir Putin and schedule a summit with him in Budapest, meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, refuse to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, and advocate for stopping the war behind the current front line.
And then Trump turned the tables again: he replaced the key negotiator with Russia, canceled the meeting with Putin in Budapest, and imposed his first sanctions against Russia, hitting its oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil. How to understand this changing dynamic? What distinguishes it from previous rounds of Trump diplomacy, and where is it ultimately leading Ukraine?
Forbes Ukraine spoke to former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, who now heads the Atlantic Council's Eurasian Center and met with Zelensky after his talks with Trump. The conversation took place just hours before Trump imposed sanctions on Russia.
The conversation has been shortened and edited for clarity.
