We’ve come a long way from the Oval Office meeting last year when U.S. President Donald Trump told Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky “you don’t have the cards.” Kyiv seems to have come up with some aces recently, with regular drone attacks deep into Russian territory. Amid the Iran conflict, the United States and its allies have turned to Ukraine to learn how it built an ecosystem of cheap offensive drones. And at the NATO summit in Turkey earlier this week, Trump agreed to give Kyiv a license to manufacture Patriot missile interceptors, potentially mitigating a key Ukrainian vulnerability in the future.

Nothing succeeds like success. But has Kyiv simultaneously figured out how to navigate Trump? The strategy is “to placate, make offers, accept what Trump offers to you,” says Dmytro Kuleba, who served as Ukraine’s foreign minister during the first two years of the war. But Kyiv must do this “while quietly continuing the strategy of decoupling” from Washington, he adds.

We’ve come a long way from the Oval Office meeting last year when U.S. President Donald Trump told Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky “you don’t have the cards.” Kyiv seems to have come up with some aces recently, with regular drone attacks deep into Russian territory. Amid the Iran conflict, the United States and its allies have turned to Ukraine to learn how it built an ecosystem of cheap offensive drones. And at the NATO summit in Turkey earlier this week, Trump agreed to give Kyiv a license to manufacture Patriot missile interceptors, potentially mitigating a key Ukrainian vulnerability in the future.

Nothing succeeds like success. But has Kyiv simultaneously figured out how to navigate Trump? The strategy is “to placate, make offers, accept what Trump offers to you,” says Dmytro Kuleba, who served as Ukraine’s foreign minister during the first two years of the war. But Kyiv must do this “while quietly continuing the strategy of decoupling” from Washington, he adds.

I spoke with Kuleba on the latest episode of FP Live about Ukraine’s broader strategy, the chances for peace talks, and what role Europe and the United States might play. Kuleba is now a senior fellow at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School. You can watch our full discussion in the video box atop this page, or by downloading the FP Live podcast. What follows here is a lightly edited and condensed transcript.

Ravi Agrawal: Let’s start with one item of news coming out of the NATO summit. [U.S. President Donald] Trump announced that Ukraine will be able to produce Patriot interceptor missiles. He’s going to give them a license to do so. How significant is this move?

Dmytro Kuleba: It’s big, but I would like to start by reminding you that the first time Ukraine requested the license to produce Patriot missiles in Ukraine was December 2023. This is just another story of how long it takes the West to make the most obvious decisions. This war is becoming more and more aerial, and there will never be enough Patriots to intercept all the ballistic missiles. So we welcome the decision, but we have to be conscious that it will take months, if not years, to actually put the production in place.

RA: I was just going to ask you about that, because Germany and Japan also have this license, and it’s been very difficult for them to actually manufacture these interceptors, and they’re several years in.

DK: Yeah. This is at least a midterm solution to a problem that needs to be solved today. We welcome the announcement. We understand that it will take years to put the manufacturing in place. There’s another issue: how to sustain the supply of all the components for the production. And the problem is that this solution does not solve the tragedy of Ukrainians living under a barrage of Russian ballistic missiles pouring on their heads literally every week. This is the problem that needs to be addressed now while the problem for the future seems to be in the process of being resolved.

RA: While we’re discussing the NATO summit, other than the Patriot issue, how do you feel Ukraine has emerged from the summit?

DK: Given the fact that the issue of accession to NATO is not being debated anymore, I think Ukraine emerged largely as a winner. There was strong demand for Ukraine at the NATO Defense Industry Forum. The political messaging from President Trump and other NATO leaders was also positive. I think the lesson here is that if you put the accession aside, Ukraine looks much stronger in its relations with NATO. When you debate enlargement, things get messy.

RA: Do you agree that Trump’s tone has shifted a fair bit in the last 18 months or so? We all remember that infamous meeting in the Oval Office where he said “You don’t have the cards right now,” and now, he seems decidedly more optimistic about Ukraine’s future. If you agree with that assessment, where do you think that’s coming from? What is changing for Trump when it comes to this war?

DK: I believe the biggest challenge in handling President Trump is not to make him change his position but to sustain his position that favors your interests. It’s good that he is positive these days, and I agree with you that he probably was advised that Ukraine is winning the war now and he should change the tone, although it’s a big question whether we are already........

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