Donald Trump has pledged to do “whatever I can” to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, as G7 leaders reached a unified conclusion at their summit in France that Russia is losing ground and must come to the negotiating table.
Speaking in Évian-les-Bains on Tuesday, Trump said he had held a “very good meeting” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and called directly on Vladimir Putin to “make a deal,” citing the staggering human cost of the conflict. “Russia’s lost tremendous amounts of people, and so has Ukraine,” Trump said. “Last month, they lost 35,000 soldiers between the two — it’s on a monthly basis. They averaged 25,000 people, mostly soldiers, young, beautiful people, and it’s crazy what’s going on there.”
Zelensky said G7 leaders unanimously agreed that “Russia is not winning and losing a lot of people, and they have to make a deal as quick as possible.” He added that a growing number of Russians understood they were not winning and should end the war “better late than never,” and urged Trump to open negotiations on new missiles to “crank up the pressure” on Moscow. Zelensky also warned that Russia “must come to learn that its war will never be normalised.”
The mood at the summit was notably more optimistic about Ukraine’s position than previous G7 gatherings. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told reporters there had been a “mood change” in recent weeks, both on the battlefield and within Russia itself. “I want just to reflect real unity in the G7 on Ukraine, a real sense that things are changing, that Ukraine is now taking territory, which it has done over the last few months, rather than defending territory,” he said. “The mood in Moscow is changing, and that was reflected around the G7 table in a pretty united way today.”
Starmer and Zelensky also held a bilateral meeting at the summit, focused on Ukraine’s “momentum on the battlefield.” A Downing Street spokeswoman said both leaders agreed there was “collective resolve to put pressure on Putin,” and that it was “now vital G7 countries gave Ukraine the support it needed to continue its success in driving back Russian forces.”
The push for a Ukraine settlement comes as Trump’s broader diplomacy in the region showed results, with a memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran signed over the weekend to end hostilities in the Middle East — a development Zelensky appeared to view as creating momentum for a similar breakthrough on Ukraine.
