Ukraine war’s pivot point is now — if Trump and Zelensky move fast

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) meets with President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the NATO Summit at Bestepe Presidential Compound in Ankara, on July 8, 2026. AFP via Getty Images

This week’s NATO summit in Ankara may have finally brought a breakthrough moment in President Donald Trump’s efforts to reach a stable ceasefire in Ukraine. 

The pivot point wasn’t Trump’s warm bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, surprising as that may have been given their fraught history.

It came soon after, when Trump said he’ll permit Ukraine to produce US-licensed Patriot interceptor missiles, which Kyiv desperately needs to blunt Russia’s barbaric ballistic-missile attacks on its civilians. 

The Patriot offer was exactly what Putin was striving to short-circuit when he called Trump on July 4. 

Last October, the Russian dictator used just such a chat ahead of a Zelensky visit to the White House to successfully dissuade Trump from providing Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles.

This time around, it fell flat.

Putin’s failure was evident in the chummy public exchange between Zelensky and Trump when they broke the Patriot news in Ankara.

“We’ve actually developed a good relationship! Hard to believe, right? From the Oval Office to now,” Trump said, all smiles, as the Ukrainian leader sat beside him.

And when Trump asked Zelensky whether he’d be willing to go to Moscow to negotiate peace, the former comedian quipped that he wasn’t sure that was possible, given Moscow’s problems with Ukrainian drones.

Both chuckled. 

You can be sure they weren’t laughing in Moscow. 

Trump critics have observed for months that Putin has been playing him — rejecting a half dozen American peace proposals, all while praising the president profusely. 

But after Ankara, arch Russian nationalist Igor Girkin Strelkov moaned that the developments had Trump leading Putin by the nose.

Ukraine’s recent breakthroughs in drone, missile and air defense technology — which has given it a clear edge in the war for the first time since its successful counter-offensive in the fall of 2022 — made the Ankara gesture possible.

Its large increase in the production of inexpensive drones and missiles — guided by intelligence coming from the US and other NATO allies — has enabled daily strikes against Russian resupply efforts to its troops behind its front lines, as well as deep strikes on strategic targets within Russia. 

Over the past two months, these strikes have created major fuel, energy, food and even ammunition shortages in Crimea, which led to the transfer of Russia’s Black Sea fleet headquarters to Novorossisk and forced many thousands of Russian tourists to head back home. 

It’s also caused a drop of at least 25% in Russian energy production, increasing pressure on the already doddering economy.

Gas shortages are spreading throughout Russia, and major weapons factories and communications centers have been destroyed. 

Putin still claims he is advancing in Donbas, but the gains are minuscule.

His forces have yet to take full control of the town of Konstyantinivka, which Moscow has claimed to be imminent at different points in recent weeks. 

Worse for Moscow, Ukrainian drones have established a truly appalling casualty ratio of eight Russians for every one Ukrainian. 

This means that Russia in unable to replace every fallen soldier with a new recruit. 

And the Kremlin has not been able to hide these latest unpleasant developments from its people.

In posts on Russian social media, ordinary citizens are howling about the inconvenience of gas shortages and internet censorship. 

On Russian TV, political shows are talking about Moscow’s inability to handle the challenge of Ukraine’s drones.

That problem will only grow in the near term. 

In the months to come, Ukraine’s drone output is expected to jump dramatically, Ukrainian officials told me in Kyiv in early June, and at the Ukraine Reconstruction Conference in Gdansk two weeks ago.

But those same officials cautioned me about excessive optimism. 

Russian authorities are trying to develop countermoves to Ukraine’s current drone dominance — and since the weapons evolution in this war is occurring swiftly, Moscow can also leap ahead. 

That puts a premium on the current moment.

Zelensky recognizes this: He has labeled his ongoing bombing campaign a 40-day “influence operation,” meant to persuade Putin and the Russian public to make peace. 

Team Trump would do well to follow up on Ankara and take full advantage of this period.

The administration should move quickly to resolve intellectual-property and supply-chain issues to get Ukraine’s Patriot production facilities up and running fast. 

Trump can also work with his G-7 colleagues and add more sanctions on the vulnerable Russian economy to squeeze it even further. 

That is true peace through strength.

John Herbst, former ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan, is senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.