Trump Archive
Video7 min read

Remarks: Donald Trump Holds a Bilat with Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine - September 23, 2025

12:00 AM
Donald Trump 00:00:00-00:00:20 (20 sec)

Thank you very much everybody. We appreciate it and we've had interesting day, I think very productive day and we're now meeting with -- we're going to start a meeting with the president who we all know very well. And he's a brave man and he's putting up one hell of a fight, and we'll see how that all turns out.

Donald Trump 00:00:20-00:00:23 (4 sec)

But we're going to have a meeting and we have about 30 meetings scheduled today.

Donald Trump 00:00:23-00:00:39 (16 sec)

We have a lot of meetings scheduled today, going pretty late into the night. But this is an important one and we have great respect for the fight that Ukraine is putting up. It's pretty amazing, actually. So Mr. President, please.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy 00:00:39-00:00:55 (15 sec)

Thank you so much, Mr. President. First of all, thank you for this meeting. Thank you for your personal efforts to stop this war just now, Mr. President. And I'm happy to say that just now, our first ladies, first lady of Ukraine, first lady of the United States --

Donald Trump 00:00:55-00:00:55 ( sec)

Yes.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy 00:00:55-00:01:02 (7 sec)

-- just now we'll have a meeting about Ukrainian children. Thank you for Melania's personal involvement to this topic.

Donald Trump 00:01:02-00:01:02 (1 sec)

Thank you.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy 00:01:02-00:01:30 (27 sec)

And this is very important. I will brief Mr. President and his team what's going on, on the battlefield. We have good news. Of course, we want to stop the war and with your help, first of all, and it's good that our soldiers occupied 360 kilometers this month. And of course we will speak about how to finish the war and about security guarantees, a lot of what to discuss.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy 00:01:30-00:01:30 (1 sec)

Thank you.

Donald Trump 00:01:30-00:01:33 (3 sec)

Would you like to say how you are doing on the battlefield while we're here?

Volodymyr Zelenskyy 00:01:33-00:01:34 (1 sec)

Yeah. Yeah.

Donald Trump 00:01:34-00:01:35 ( sec)

Please.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy 00:01:35-00:02:02 (28 sec)

Yeah, yeah, so we, thanks to our soldiers and to possibility to [Inaudible] the program with NATO countries, by the way, thanks to your support, that they can buy from the United States. So our soldiers, this month, they occupied 360 kilometers and they encircled 1,000 soldiers. And of course -- of course, we want to exchange because we need our soldiers in any case.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy 00:02:02-00:02:41 (38 sec)

But thanks to our soldiers, we have this possibility. This opportunity will continue until Russia will stop this war and I hope that they will stop. In any case, we know that the economy of Russia is [Inaudible] this war, we need more pressure and more sanctions and I hope with United States, first of all and Europe, but we support, Mr. President, your idea and I want to discuss it, how to stop some countries from Europe, how to stop the possibility to buy Russian oil and gas.

Donald Trump 00:02:41-00:02:41 (1 sec)

That's right.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy 00:02:41-00:02:54 (13 sec)

Yes, I had a conversation, by the way, with President of Slovakia -- Prime Minister. Prime Minister of Slovakia. We had a good conversation. I think that they need some alternative ways and they will support this idea. I'm not sure that Hungarians are ready, but everything is in the future.

Donald Trump 00:02:54-00:02:55 (1 sec)

Thank you very much.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy 00:02:55-00:03:02 (7 sec)

Thank you.

Donald Trump 00:03:02-00:03:04 (2 sec)

Any questions, please?

Question 00:03:04-00:03:11 (8 sec)

Mr. President, do you think that NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace?

Donald Trump 00:03:11-00:03:12 (1 sec)

Yes, I do.

Question 00:03:12-00:03:18 (6 sec)

Mr. President, any update on your talks with President Putin? And do you still trust him?

Donald Trump 00:03:18-00:03:21 (3 sec)

I'll let you know in about a month from now. OK?

Question 00:03:21-00:03:27 (6 sec)

President Trump, your message to -- Mr. President, are you willing to provide Ukraine with the security guarantees the same way as European allies --

Donald Trump 00:03:27-00:03:38 (12 sec)

Well, that's later down the road, we'll be talking about that. Hopefully, we'll be in a position to talk about that a little bit later on. It's a little bit too early to answer that question. Yeah, go ahead, please.

Question 00:03:38-00:03:44 (5 sec)

President Trump, your message to President Orban who is refusing to stop buying Russian oil?

Donald Trump 00:03:44-00:03:51 (7 sec)

Well, 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.

Question 00:03:51-00:03:58 (7 sec)

What progress do you think has been made on ending Russia's war against Ukraine since the last time you saw President Zelenskyy?

Donald Trump 00:03:58-00:04:21 (24 sec)

Well, the biggest progress is that the Russian economy is terrible right now, as you know. It's crashing. And that frankly, Ukraine is doing a very good job of stopping this very large army. It's pretty amazing. You know, this is a war that should have ended in three days, four days. People said it was going to be very quick and you got to hand it to the Ukrainian soldiers and everybody involved.

Donald Trump 00:04:21-00:04:41 (19 sec)

It's still going on and that's not a good thing for Russia. This was supposed to be quick. And so, you know, Russia doesn't look very distinguished having taken three and a half years now, right? It's about three and a half years of very hard fighting. And it looks like it's not going to end for a long time.

Question 00:04:41-00:04:49 (8 sec)

Mr. President? Mr. President, have you been briefed on the latest alleged drone incursion into Denmark? What do you think of that? And --

Donald Trump 00:04:49-00:04:50 (1 sec)

Where? Where are they?

Question 00:04:50-00:05:00 (10 sec)

Into Denmark, Copenhagen. Denmark is saying that there were some drones that took down the airport, possibly Russian sabotage. What's your response to that? And will the US have --

Donald Trump 00:05:00-00:05:08 (8 sec)

Well, I have no response until I find out exactly what happened. I know about it, but they haven't -- they don't know what happened, but we're going to find out very soon.

Question 00:05:08-00:05:17 (9 sec)

Sir? Would you back up NATO allies? You said that you thought that they should shoot down the Russian aircraft. Would you back them up? Would the United States help them out in some way?

Donald Trump 00:05:17-00:05:36 (19 sec)

Depends on the circumstance, but you know, we're very strong toward NATO. NATO stepped up. You know, when they went from two percent to five percent, that was great unity. Trillions of dollars is being pumped in and they're paying us for the weapons that we send. But that was a big day that nobody thought a thing like that could happen.

Donald Trump 00:05:36-00:05:55 (19 sec)

You had countries that weren't paying two percent and now they're all paying five percent. That's a lot of money. It's a lot of weapons they're buying and they're buying them from us. They're buying them from the US. You know, in the old days, Biden gave them everything, gave them $350 billion worth of money and weapons.

Donald Trump 00:05:55-00:06:18 (24 sec)

That's a lot of money and a lot of weapons. And we got, really, not much for it. We gave the money to Ukraine to fight. And we've, uh, they've proven, they're very brave. I mean, look, they're fighting and this is a war going on three and a half years, and people thought it would be over quickly because Russia is a big military power and Ukraine, I tell you, they are good fighters.

Donald Trump 00:06:18-00:06:23 (5 sec)

Got to hand it to them. They have a lot of courage; a lot of guts. Thank you very much, everybody.

Aide 00:06:23-00:06:26 (3 sec)

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys.