Trump says Ukraine is able to win back all the land it lost since the beginning of the invasion
In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said that Ukraine is in a position to “fight and win back” all of the territory it has lost since the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion.
“Why not? Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” Trump wrote, in a rare full-throated endorsement of Ukraine’s potential.
“Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that! Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act,” Trump said in his lengthy social media meditation. He added that the US will continue to supply Nato with weapons for purchase.
Earlier, in a bilateral meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said that the “Russian economy is terrible right now” and Ukraine has done a “pretty amazing” job at staving off the Kremlin’s forces.
Key events
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also speaking currently at a UN meeting of the Security Council.
“One of the prominent members of this council is doing everything to prolong the largest war in Europe since World War II,” Zelenskyy said. “Russia does this with its veto power.”
“China is also represented here, a powerful nation on which Russia relies completely,” he added. “Without China, Putin’s Russia is nothing.”
Zelenskyy also nodded to his recent meeting with Donald Trump. “We expect America’s actions to push Moscow toward peace,” he said.
Donald Trump’s multilateral meeting with several leaders of Arab and Muslim countries has begun.
In brief remarks to reporters, Trump said, “We want to end the war in Gaza.”
“This is my most important meeting,” he added. “We’re going to end something that should have probably never started.”
During his pull aside with Macron, Donald Trump flagged that his next meeting – a multilateral sitdown with several leaders of Arab and Muslim countries – will be crucial to address the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
“We’re going to see if we can do something about it. We want to stop that. We want to get our hostages back, or their hostages back.”
Much like his address to the general assembly today, the president said that we can’t “forget” the October 7 attack by Hamas in his meeting with Macron. In response, the French president said “nobody forgets the seventh of October”.
This week, France joined Britain, Canada, Portugal and Australia to formally recognize Palestinian statehood. For his part, Donald Trump has branded the move as a “reward to Hamas”.
In meeting with Macron, Trump reiterates belief that Ukraine has power to gain back territory: ‘I really do feel that way’
In a meeting with French president Emanuel Macron, Donald Trump reiterated his recent comments on Truth Social that Ukraine has the potential to win back all the territory it has lost to Russia in the three and a half years since the most recent war in the region began.
Trump said that Ukraine’s ability to fight back might prove that Russia is a “paper tiger”.
“I feel that way. I really do feel that way. Let them get their land back,” the president added.
Trump says Ukraine is able to win back all the land it lost since the beginning of the invasion
In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said that Ukraine is in a position to “fight and win back” all of the territory it has lost since the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion.
“Why not? Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” Trump wrote, in a rare full-throated endorsement of Ukraine’s potential.
“Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that! Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act,” Trump said in his lengthy social media meditation. He added that the US will continue to supply Nato with weapons for purchase.
Earlier, in a bilateral meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said that the “Russian economy is terrible right now” and Ukraine has done a “pretty amazing” job at staving off the Kremlin’s forces.
EU chief says Trump is ‘absolutely right’ about Europe buying Russian oil
Earlier, president of the EU commission Ursula von der Leyen said that Donald Trump was “absolutely right” about European countries continuing to buy Russian energy products. A move the president described as “inexcusable” in his address to the UN general assembly today.
“We’re on it. We have reduced already massive gas supply from Russia, completely gotten out of Russian coal, and massively also reduced the oil supply. But there’s still some coming to the European continent,” von der Leyen said during a pull aside meeting with the presiden. “So what we do now? We put sanctions out to those ports where, for example, energy is coming from Russia. And we want to put tariffs on oil supplies that are still coming to the European Union.”
Man who attempted to assassinate Trump at Florida golf course found guilty
Ryan Routh, the man who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at the president’s Florida golf course last year, has been found guilty in federal court today.
Routh, 59, was convicted on five counts, including attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. In September 2024, he was spotted with a rifle hiding in the bushes at the president’s West Palm Beach club as Trump’s golfing party approached. Routh represented himself in court, and prosecutors accused him of plotting for months to kill Donald Trump during his successful run to return to the White House.
“Today’s guilty verdict against would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh illustrates the Department of Justice’s commitment to punishing those who engage in political violence,” said attorney general Pam Bondi.
Jurors deliberated for just a few hours before returning with a guilty verdict. According to reports from the courtroom, as the verdict was being read, Routh attempted to stab himself in the neck with a pen.
Fox News reports that four marshals then dragged Routh out of the court room, shackled him, and brought him back.
Rajeev Syal
Keir Starmer is facing demands from Labour MPs to reprimand the Trump administration after the president falsely claimed London wanted to “go to sharia law” under its “terrible mayor”, Sadiq Khan.
During his address to the UN general assembly, Trump said: “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed. Now they want to go to sharia law. But you are in a different country, you can’t do that.”
The development will cause further discomfort in No 10 after Trump was last week honored with an unprecedented second state visit to the UK. Starmer has repeatedly cited the ability to avoid the worst of US tariffs as a reason for his largely conciliatory approach to Trump.
Rosena Allin-Khan, the Member of Parliament for Tooting, said Warren Stephens, the US ambassador to the UK and an ally of Trump, should be called to account for the president’s remarks.
Khan was also defended by Wes Streeting, the health secretary, who wrote on X: “Sadiq Khan is not trying to impose sharia law on London. This is a mayor who marches with Pride, who stands up for difference of background and opinion, who’s focused on improving our transport, our air, our streets, our safety, our choices and chances.”
The White House confirms that Donald Trump’s meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrapped a short while ago.
In addition to the president’s multilateral meeting with several leaders of Arab and Muslim countries, he will also have separate meetings with French president Emmanuel Macron, and Shavkat Mirziyoyev, president of Uzbekistan, later today, according to a White House official.
Fact-checking Donald Trump’s speech to the UN general assembly
My colleague, Robert Tait, has also been covering the president’s address to the UN general assembly. He’s got a very helpful guide to the spurious claims that the president made throughout his speech – at least five by his count.
Read more below.
Trump says Nato countries have the right to shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace
When asked by reporters whether Nato countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace, the president said “yes, I do”.
He later added that support for Nato allies would depend on the circumstance, but expressed his appreciation for the group’s purchase power in terms of weapons being sent to Ukraine.
“Nato stepped up, you know, when they went from 2% to 5%. That was great unity,” Trump said. “It’s a lot of weapons they’re buying, and they’re buying them from us. They’re buying them from the US.”
Trump and Zelenskyy take part in bilateral meeting, discuss pressure campaign on Russia
The president took part in a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the United Nations today.
For his part, Zelenskyy said that he supported Donald Trump’s remarks, during his general assembly address today, where he said that the US would be willing to Europe needed to stop buying Russian gas and oil as long as Vladimir Putin refuses to end the war in Ukraine.
“They’re funding the war against themselves,” Trump said during his speech.
The Ukrainian leader said “more pressure and more sanctions” would be needed to deter the Kremlin.
Trump went on to say that he’ll “hopefully” be able to talk about what security guarantees the US can offer Ukraine, but stopped short of providing any details. “It’s a little bit too early to answer that question,” he said.
When asked Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s decision to keep buying Russian energy products, Trump was confident that he has the power to persuade his close ally: “He’s a friend of mine. I have not spoken to him, but I have a feeling if I did, he might stop, and I think I’ll be doing that.”
The president reflected further on his address today in a pull aside with president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
“It’s a great honor to be with a very powerful, very smart woman and a friend of mine,” Trump said. “She does a fantastic job running lots of different nations.”
He went on to say that the United Nations has the potential to be “unbelievable” if “certain people” were running it.
“Recently, I started thinking, you know, we were never helped by the UN,” the president added. “It should be great. I mean, we shouldn’t have any wars if the UN is really doing its job.”
Trump says that his UN speech was ‘very well received’
In a post on Truth Social, the president summarized that his address to the UN general assembly, which lasted almost an hour, was “very well received”.
He added:
It focused very much on energy and migration/immigration. I have been talking about this for a long period of time and this Forum, was the absolute best from the standpoint of making these two important statements.
Fiona Harvey
Donald Trump’s description of the climate crisis as a “con job” came as little surprise to other countries, as the US president has repeatedly denied climate science – which is backed up by decades of rigorous scientific work by thousands of researchers – multiple times in the past, as well as dismantling the US federal government’s efforts on climate action.
Ilana Seid, ambassador of Palau, and current chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said:
Their position has always been ‘drill baby drill’, so we were not surprised.
She said it was not possible to tell whether Trump’s words would have an impact on other countries, ahead of a key meeting that António Guterres, UN secretary-general, will hold tomorrow in New York to discuss speeding up reductions of global greenhouse gas emissions. “The secretary-general has convened meetings with world leaders, and all have reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris agreement and the importance of multilateralism. [The key is] making sure they’re living up to their promises,” she said.
She added: “The conversations in rooms I have been in [at the UN general assembly this week] have had leaders reaffirm our collective obligation to the Paris agreement.”
Trump is withdrawing the US from the Paris agreement, even as the world prepares for a crunch conference on the climate, the Cop30 summit in Brazil in November. Unlike Trump, other world leaders must turn up, said Seid.
“Cop30 will be a very important Cop [conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, parent treaty to the Paris agreement],” she told journalists on a press call. “We will see who shows up to drive the process forward.”
In the UK, experts called on politicians to ignore Trump’s advice. Alasdair Johnstone, of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank, said:
Polling consistently shows a clear majority of the British public are supportive of efforts to tackle climate change. The impacts of climate change are visible to many in the UK, as they see flooding, heatwaves, or crops failing in the fields, playing out as British scientists had predicted.
British politicians should be careful in aligning with Trump’s denial of climate change and being perceived as out of touch with the public; there is no electoral dividend here. Science told us the world is not flat, and science has also undeniably told us the world is heating up because of the emissions we have pumped into the atmosphere. Reaching net zero emissions is the only way we reach climate balance and stop climate change.
Trump gives Argentinian president Javier Milei ‘full backing and endorsement’ for re-election
Meeting with Argentina’s Javier Milei on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York, Donald Trump pulled him aside and endorsed him for re-election as president, announcing to reporters:
We are giving the president of Argentina our full backing and endorsement.
He went on:
I’m doing something I don’t often do, I’m giving my full endorsement to him … The people of Argentina – we’re backing him 100%. He, like us, inherited a mess and what he’s done to fix it is good … we need to make Argentina great again so it’s an honor for me to endorse.
Milei, an ally of the US president, thanked him and they shook hands.
Per White House pool reporter Emily Goodin, Trump answered a few questions about his endorsement and the bailout, adding that he would help Argentina, but didn’t think a bailout was needed.
We’re gonna help them but I don’t think they need a bailout. He’s doing a fantastic job.
A White House spokesperson told the pool there will be more announcements about Argentina‘s financial situation made. We’ll bring you more on that as we get it.
Angelique Chrisafis
In lighter news, last night Emmanuel Macron had to walk half an hour by foot through New York after his speech to the United Nations on recognising Palestine as a state after his vehicle was stopped by police to make way for the arrival of Donald Trump’s motorcade.
Video footage shows the French president getting out of his car to talk to police officers, saying he needs to get to his country’s consulate. “I’m sorry, president, I’m really sorry, everything has been frozen, there’s a motorcade coming right now,” an officer tells Macron, who then looks out over the empty street and replies: “I don’t see it, let me cross.”
Macron, who remains stuck behind a metal barrier, takes out his phone and appears to call Trump directly. Leaning on the barrier, he says, laughingly: “How are you? Guess what? I’m waiting in the street because everything is frozen for you.” He also mentions wanting to get together with Qatar to discuss the situation in Gaza.
Macron later appears to be allowed through on foot but not in his car. Still on his phone, he proceeds to stride off down the street, past shoppers and pedestrians. Macron reportedly walked for about 30 minutes with his security detail. He stopped and posed with passersby who asked for photographs, including one encounter with a man who kissed him on the forehead.
Here’s the surreal footage:
