U.S. President Donald Trump, right, and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. File picture
| Photo Credit: AP
A top Kremlin aide said on Thursday (June 18, 2026) that European leaders had probably pumped Donald Trump with harmful ideas at this week’s G7 summit, but that the U.S. president was a strong leader who stuck to his own ideas.
Mr. Trump said Russia should make peace with Ukraine after a “very good” meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday, in comments that sparked cautious optimism among G7 leaders that a peace deal could be struck.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said on Thursday (June 18) that he believed Mr. Trump had been misinformed about the state of affairs in Ukraine at the summit and that Moscow was still expecting a visit from Trump Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — although no date for that has yet been set.
“One can presume that Trump was pumped with…harmful ideas. We understand that the Europeans are exercising an unhelpful influence here,” Mr. Ushakov told Russian state TV.
“Trump is a strong politician and sticks to his views. He commented on some things and kept other things to himself. Let’s see how things develop,” he said.
Mr. Zelenskyy and his European allies impressed upon Mr. Trump that they believed that Ukraine’s battlefield fortunes had improved thanks to its drone incursions deep into Russia. Ushakov said that was “categorically not true.”
Published – June 18, 2026 05:17 pm IST