Washington is stepping back and pushing responsibility for Ukraine onto Europe, according to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
“President Trump has stated that Ukraine can, with the support of the European Union, regain all of its territory,” Tusk, who leads Poland’s centre-left government, said in an X post yesterday.
“Behind this surprising optimism lies the announcement of reduced US involvement and shifting responsibility for ending the war onto Europe,” he said, adding that “truth is better than illusion”.
Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social on September 24 and said: “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 added that, with European and NATO financial support, restoring Ukraine’s prewar borders was “very much an option”.
In the same post, Trump referred to Russia as a “paper tiger” and also warned that Ukraine may even end up seizing Russia territory itself, whereas previously, he was urging Ukraine to exchange territory for peace.
Tusk’s response to Trump’s shift in position chimes with the views expressed in several European capitals that the US is actually proposing to wash its hands of the conflict in Ukraine, meaning Ukraine and Europe will have to face Russia alone.
The recently elected Polish President Karol Nawrocki took a more optimistic view of Trump’s new stance than that offered by Tusk.
Speaking to reporters after his visit to the UN General Assembly, Nawrocki said the US President’s words were “a result of the work that we, the leaders of Central and Eastern European countries, including myself, have been consistently doing”.
Nawrocki told reporters that he felt he was able to have some influence over Trump’s position on Russia.
“I emphasised … the threats of hybrid warfare and the violation of Polish airspace by Russian drones,” said Nawrocki.
He has met Trump on three occasions in the past five months, including in the White House. There, Trump assured Poland that US troops would remain in the country to guarantee its security.
Tusk has been highly critical of Trump and in 2023 labelled him a “Russian asset”.
The Polish PM has also been criticised by US Vice-President JD Vance and State Secretary Marco Rubio for hitting out at the US Republican Party.
