WP: Trump tells Zelenskyy that to win, Ukraine needs to go on the offensive

During a call on July 4, US president Donald Trump told his counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine needs to go on the offensive to win, states the Washington Post, citing an anonymous Ukrainian official.

According to him, Trump told Zelenskyy that Ukraine will not change the course of the war by playing defense, and it needs to go on the offensive.

It is not specified what the president of Ukraine replied to this.

The WP interlocutor also said that when Trump asked whether Ukraine could bomb Moscow or St. Petersburg, Zelenskyy replied: "If we have the right weapons we can." Earlier, this conversation was reported by two interlocutors of the Financial Times.

In the White House later confirmed that the US president did ask his Ukrainian counterpart about the possibility of such strikes, but "did not encourage further killings." In the end, Trump himself said Zelenskyy should not bomb Moscow.

• The last major offensive of the Defense Forces to date was Kursk operation, that began in August 2024. In the spring of 2025, the defenders had to withdraw from most of the Russian region, and the invaders managed to occupy part of Sumy region on another section of the border.
• In June, Armed Forces сhief Syrskyi reported that the Kursk operation had managed to draw back almost 63,000 Russians and about 7,000 DPRK soldiers, which eased the invaders' pressure in other areas and allowed Ukraine to regroup its troops.
• He also said that in April, active actions of the Defense Forces in another district of Kursk region thwarted the replenishment of Russian offensive groups in the occupied territories. In addition to the Kursk region, Ukrainian troops are present in and in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation.