President Donald Trump privately urged Ukraine to escalate deep strikes against Russian territory, specifically asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy whether he could target Moscow if Washington supplied long-range weapons systems, according to officials briefed on the discussions reported by The Financial Times.
The July 4 conversation between the American and Ukrainian leaders represents a dramatic shift from Trump's previous position on Russia's war and his campaign commitment to withdraw US involvement from foreign conflicts. Trump's inquiry came after what he characterized as a "bad" phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin the previous day, sources familiar with the matter told The Financial Times.
During the Independence Day call, Trump directly questioned his Ukrainian counterpart about striking military installations deep within Russian territory if provided with appropriate weaponry, according to two officials briefed on the conversation. "Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow? Can you hit St Petersburg too?" Trump asked during the call, the sources revealed to The Financial Times.
Zelenskyy responded affirmatively, stating "Absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons," according to the officials. Trump expressed support for the approach, describing the strategy as designed to "make them [Russians] feel the pain" and compel the Kremlin toward negotiations, the two sources told The Financial Times.
The conversation reflects growing sentiment among Ukraine's western partners to provide long-range weapons capable of "bringing the war to Muscovites," according to a western official informed of the call. This perspective has been echoed privately by American officials in recent weeks, The Financial Times reported.
The White House and Ukraine's presidential office declined to respond to requests for comment from The Financial Times.
The Trump-Zelenskyy discussion resulted in US officials sharing a list of potential weapons systems with the Ukrainian president during a Rome meeting last week, according to three sources with knowledge of the exchange. Zelenskyy received the catalog of long-range strike systems that could potentially be made available to Ukraine through third-party transfers during meetings with US defense officials and intermediaries from NATO governments.
This arrangement would enable Trump to bypass the current congressional freeze on direct US military aid by authorizing weapons sales to European allies, who would subsequently transfer the systems to Kyiv, sources explained to The Financial Times.
Ukrainian officials had specifically requested Tomahawk missiles – precision strike cruise missiles with approximately 1,600-kilometer (994-mile) range. However, the Trump administration, like its predecessor, expressed concerns about Ukraine's potential lack of restraint, according to a source familiar with the weapons list shared with Zelenskyy.
During an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Monday, Trump announced plans to provide Ukraine with Patriot air defense systems and interceptor missiles but did not reveal shipments of other weapons systems, The Financial Times reported.
Trump expressed his displeasure with Russia and Putin over the absence of progress toward ending the war. "I'm disappointed in President [Vladimir] Putin, because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago," the US president stated.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia's security council and former interim president, dismissed Trump's decision on social media. "Trump issued a theatrical ultimatum to the Kremlin Russia didn't care," Medvedev wrote on X.
Two sources briefed on the Trump-Zelenskyy call and familiar with US-Ukraine military strategy discussions indicated that the Army Tactical Missile System, or Atacms, was among the weapons discussed, according to The Financial Times.
Ukraine has deployed US-supplied Atacms missiles with ranges up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) to strike targets in Russian-occupied territory and, in some instances, deeper inside Russia. The Atacms can be launched from HIMARS rocket systems that the Biden administration delivered to Ukraine, but they lack sufficient range to reach Moscow or St Petersburg.
Russia has repeatedly threatened to attack western targets in response to western weapons supplies to Ukraine but has not yet acted on these warnings, The Financial Times reported.
After Ukraine first used the Atacms system to strike military targets inside Russian sovereign territory last November, Putin declared the war had "taken on elements of a global nature" and responded by test-firing the Oreshnik, an experimental intermediate-range missile, on the city of Dnipro.
The Russian president stated Moscow was entitled to "use our weaponry against military facilities of countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities, and in the case the aggressive action escalates, we will respond just as decisively and symmetrically."
Following the Atacms strikes, Russia published an updated nuclear doctrine that lowered the threshold for potential use. The changes could envision a Russian nuclear first strike against the US, UK and France – NATO's three nuclear powers – in response to Ukraine's strikes on Russia with weapons such as the Atacms and Storm Shadow missiles, The Financial Times reported.
Washington has periodically warned Ukraine against using these weapons to strike deep inside Russia, but those constraints appear to be loosening currently. Ukraine has primarily used its own domestically-produced long-range drones to strike military targets deep inside Russia that fuel its war machine.
Ukraine's most audacious attack occurred in early June, when the SBU security service launched swarms of suicide drones hidden inside prefabricated homes that it smuggled into Russia and attacked the country's fleet of strategic bombers. The planes had been used in Moscow's bombardments of Ukrainian cities throughout the war. At least 12 aircraft were heavily damaged or destroyed in what Kyiv called Operation Spiderweb, according to The Financial Times.
