{"id":42646,"date":"2026-06-19T20:47:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/42646\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T20:47:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:47:27","slug":"game-changer-too-soon-to-tell-but-ukraine-flexed-in-striking-moscow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/42646\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Game Changer\u2019? Too Soon to Tell. But Ukraine Flexed in Striking Moscow."},"content":{"rendered":"

Assessments that Ukraine has reached a turning point in the conflict with Russia may well prove premature. But the towering dome of black smoke that hung over Moscow<\/a> this week after a Ukrainian drone onslaught showed that Kyiv still has plenty of cards to play, no matter President Trump\u2019s earlier appraisal of its prospects in the war.<\/p>\n

President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s hand was made clear as he moved to seize the initiative both militarily and diplomatically.<\/p>\n

The strikes on Moscow on Thursday left part of the city\u2019s biggest oil refinery in flames. An immense blast sent the top of a fuel storage vessel soaring into the air \u2014 and blew the roof off the idea that Russia could continue to shield Muscovites from the war.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Mr. Zelensky was securing a statement of \u201cunwavering support\u201d from the Group of 7 industrialized nations during a summit in France. It was a rare unified expression of backing for Kyiv that came even after Mr. Trump signaled at the summit that ending the war was no longer among his top priorities, saying that the United States had \u201cnothing to do\u201d with the conflict<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The remark by Mr. Trump, who has been seen as favoring Russia in peace negotiations, may actually have been a source of relief for European officials who have discussed taking a more active role in trying to halt the war.<\/p>\n

The G7 delivered its message of support just as negotiations officially began for Ukraine to join the European Union. By Thursday, as part of Moscow burned, the bloc reaffirmed that a loan to Ukraine of 90 billion euros ($103 billion) approved in December would begin to be disbursed this month. The country\u2019s defense minister also announced $4 billion in new pledges of Western military aid.<\/p>\n

It is far from clear that Ukraine\u2019s expanding campaign of long-range strikes on Russia and its solidified support from European allies will push the war closer to a conclusion.<\/p>\n

But this week\u2019s developments reinforced a growing sense of confidence in Kyiv that it would be able to force the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, to the negotiating table, even as Russia continues to pound the Ukrainian capital with missiles and drones, exploiting Ukraine\u2019s air defense shortage.<\/p>\n

\u201cUkraine is strong \u2014 everyone absolutely agrees on that,\u201d Mr. Zelensky told journalists in a voice message late Thursday. \u201cPutin does not want to stop. And everything he says about wanting peace is a lie. All partners, all Europeans, feel this. But they are also convinced that together we will stop him. The key is \u2018together\u2019 and \u2018we will.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

European leaders reiterated his view as they wrapped up the meetings that secured more backing for Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tide is clearly turning for Ukraine,\u201d Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said<\/a> on Thursday. \u201cThe momentum is strong. And Europe will carry it even further.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nauseda, said<\/a>, \u201cWhat is happening right now in Moscow is a game changer in this war.\u201d Russians, he added, \u201cwill realize this is not about watching war on the TV screen, but this is about the war on their own soil.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, mocked Europeans for their approach to potential negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey believe that they need to talk to Russia from a position of strength,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cSuch talks will lead nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Putin has said nothing publicly about Thursday\u2019s bombardment of Moscow. Igor Sechin, the chief executive of the state-owned oil giant Rosneft, acknowledged on Friday that Russia was facing problems with fuel supplies. But he said those issues were related in part to \u201cunscheduled maintenance at refineries,\u201d in what appeared to be a euphemism for the scores of Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil infrastructure in recent months.<\/p>\n

The mood in Ukraine is bullish as it brings the war home to Russia. The feeling was summarized by a meme that showed Mr. Zelensky sitting across from Mr. Trump in France. The photograph was edited to fill both of the Ukrainian leader\u2019s hands with playing cards and even cover his suit in them.<\/p>\n

The joke was a reference to Mr. Trump\u2019s claims last year that Ukraine had no cards in the war.<\/p>\n

Mr. Zelensky used the sit-down with Mr. Trump in France to request permission for blueprints for Patriot air defense systems, the only weapon in the Ukrainian arsenal that can reliably shoot down ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n

Such an arrangement, which has not yet been approved, would allow Ukraine to expand its supply of the systems by building them at home rather than waiting for deliveries from partners that buy them from the United States.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, reposted a photo of Thursday\u2019s attack on social media. \u201cIn Moscow, everything is going according to plan,\u201d he wrote. \u201cNot Russia\u2019s plan, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukraine continued to fire drones at Moscow on Friday, and the regional governor said that an 8-year-old girl had been killed.<\/p>\n

Several Ukrainian civilians were killed in Russian attacks overnight, including a girl, also 8, in the eastern city of Pavlohrad.<\/p>\n

Paul Sonne and Valerie Hopkins contributed reporting from Berlin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Assessments that Ukraine has reached a turning point in the conflict with Russia may well prove premature. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[11417,23124,8,11072,16784,9,790,7,536],"class_list":["post-42646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-drones-pilotless-planes","tag-group-of-seven","tag-headlines","tag-kyiv-ukraine","tag-moscow-russia","tag-news","tag-russia","tag-top-stories","tag-ukraine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116778739019863536","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}