I only caught a little bit of what was happening at the G7 meeting in France. I know that Trump and Zelensky spoke briefly during a break in an early meeting and that Zelensky had asked about licenses that would allow the country to manufacture U.S. Patriot missiles domestically. He suggested that Trump seemed amenable to the idea. In any case, some of Trump's other comments seem to show a somewhat different approach toward the war in Ukraine.
Donald Trump has said that Vladimir Putin needs the war in Ukraine to end as Moscow is losing more troops than Kyiv.
Speaking at the G7 summit, the US president described Russia as the “offensive” party in the conflict in an apparent shift in his stance towards the war...
Trump showed a "real change in approach" regarding the war, French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier in the day. Other European leaders made similar comments.
The US president said he had a “very good” meeting with President Zelensky and called on Russia to make peace with Ukraine.
I pulled up the video of President Trump's remarks and they are actually quite a bit more expansive on this point than the article suggests. He seemed to show empathy for the soldiers on both sides who are losing their lives, but he did note that things have been especially bad for Russia lately.
Trump's numbers are accurate. Those are the same ones I've seen reported in various places over the past couple months. So, without being too confrontational, he's basically acknowledging that Russia is losing at this point and therefore it doesn't make much sense to continue fighting and sending young people to die for nothing.
One of the things that Trump could do to clamp down on Putin is to end the pause in sanctions on Russian oil. And it sounds like Trump is prepared to do that fairly soon.
The G7 leaders reached a broad agreement Tuesday to increase economic pressure on Russia as they strive to bring an end to Moscow’s war against Ukraine, diplomats and officials told POLITICO. The leaders held a working meeting with the Ukrainian president earlier in the day.
The political agreement, which lacks specifics, would mark a shift for the United States which in recent months has waived some of the sanctions it had in place targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s oil revenues. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Trump, during a later bilateral meeting with the president of the United Arab Emirates, appeared to suggest the U.S. could let lapse the waiver on Russian oil sanctions, which will expire on Wednesday. The president didn’t provide a timeline, but said the administration could make that move “at some point.”
“Soon, we’ll be able to do that because the oil is now flowing,” Trump said when asked if the U.S. planned to increase sanctions on Russia. “We took sanctions off because obviously we’re not looking to impede the oil, but we’re in a position to do that soon.”
It's a small step and probably won't matter as much to Putin as the general decline in oil prices with the end of the war with Iran. Putin has had four months in which his illicit oil sales have earned him a lot of money but over the next few months that money is likely to go away.
Finally, I've written a bunch of times about the Russian economy. One of the sources I like is this BBC reporter who posts videos in which he just reads the Russian papers and translates what they are saying. And what he's seeing now is that there is an admission the economy is struggling. Those "unscheduled repairs" at Russian refineries are having an impact.
In today’s Russian papers:
— Steve Rosenberg (@BBCSteveR) June 17, 2026
• “Nearly 2/3 of Russian regions have budget deficit”
• Drone attack on Moscow region
• “Unscheduled repairs at Russian oil refineries”
• What to call the new world order…?#ReadingRussia pic.twitter.com/DdSlroj1d2
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