A NATO summit full of surprises: how Zelenskyy secured more than expected from Trump

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s trip to Ankara for the NATO summit was always going to be a successful one. The Alliance had planned to announce pre-existing decisions on funding for Ukraine’s armed forces and were just waiting for the official event to do so. The package even includes measures to integrate Ukraine further into NATO.

In addition, relations with the US president, who plays a particularly important role in NATO, have been improving recently.

But there were pleasant surprises even for those who’d anticipated that the 2026 summit would be a success. It’s safe to say that it exceeded expectations.

In terms of NATO, everything went well – just as predicted.

And in terms of the US, Ukraine received more than it could have hoped for. The meeting with Donald Trump demonstrated that the American president is increasingly leaning towards supporting Kyiv, for one simple reason: Ukraine is winning on the battlefield, and Trump likes to bet on winners.

This was evident in both the US president’s actions and his decisions, perhaps the most important of which was the political agreement to grant Ukraine a licence to manufacture interceptor missiles for Patriot systems.

Another pleasant surprise was the results of diplomacy efforts with Poland and Hungary. Zelenskyy resumed dialogue with the president of Poland and managed to get out of an artificial deadlock with Hungary. Hungarian leader Péter Magyar appears to have reconsidered his stance and abandoned the unrealistic demands that had been preventing the normalisation of relations.

However, the agreements reached in Ankara are only laying the groundwork.

The real changes are still ahead. Ukraine must make use of the opportunities that have emerged. Every point matters, from Patriots to Magyar.

Trump’s negativity towards NATO allies

Negotiations with the US president are always unpredictable to some extent. Unlike other leaders, Trump does not rely on talking points written by his advisers and diplomats, but on his personal attitude towards his counterpart and his own perception of political processes.

This perception frequently differs from the way Europeans see the world. There was no shortage of examples of this in Ankara.

The way Trump lashed out at Spain will have repercussions. His criticism did not come out of nowhere: relations between Trump’s America and Madrid have long been less than great. And Spain’s refusal to let US bombers use its air bases before heading off on combat missions to Iran put an end to any prospect of friendship between them.

But Trump’s announcement of a trade war with Spain during the NATO summit itself went beyond even the most pessimistic expectations.

It is not yet clear what this will mean in practice, but Washington is reportedly preparing to impose an embargo on Spanish goods.

An even bigger surprise was the revival of the conflict with Denmark.

On this the US president’s policy went beyond the boundaries of international law, good-neighbourly relations, allied commitments etc. long ago. But over the past six months, it had seemed that Trump’s territorial claims with respect to Denmark had been put to rest – that, in the face of resistance both internationally and within the US, Trump would no longer revert to his publicly declared intention to annex Greenland.

But the optimists turned out to be wrong.

Immediately before the NATO summit, first "sources in the White House", then Trump himself once again began declaring an intention to take Greenland away from an allied state.

Exactly what Trump hoped to achieve through this escalation is unclear. There has been no shortage of conspiracy theories about an alleged intention to derail the Alliance summit and so on, but that did not happen. The allies appear to have become accustomed to the US president’s eccentricities and the fact that at times they have to ignore completely unacceptable statements.

Another layer of absurdity was added to the situation by the fact that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he had a "very friendly" conversation with Trump at the summit just before the US president’s outburst. He has since said he is prepared to handle Trump’s threats "patiently".

This made Trump's actions towards Ukraine stand out all the more.

Trump’s positivity towards Ukraine

If the official White House statements are to be believed, Trump held three full bilateral meetings during his two days in Ankara. The first was with the summit’s host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Then Trump held (admittedly brief) talks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. More time was spent on the public part of that meeting – a press conference improvised by Trump in the presence of the secretary general during which he lashed out at allies, including Spain.

His third major meeting was with Ukraine.

The Trump-Zelenskyy talks took place on Wednesday, at a time when other NATO members were still in summit meetings.

The meeting between the presidents was scheduled to last an hour – a long time for a Trump meeting. The leaders ended up talking to the media for more than 40 minutes, and after the journalists were asked to leave, they continued their discussions in private for about another hour.

The length and exclusivity of the meeting say a great deal. But there were also other signs of President Trump’s positive attitude towards Ukraine.

It’s worth mentioning one particular feature of the spontaneous press conferences that Trump holds before his international meetings. The foreign leader sits next to the US president, and if Trump wants to speak with the press, he starts to act as a moderator and personally decides which journalists get to ask questions. Representatives of the White House press pool will be there – American media figures whom Trump sees every day and often knows by name – as well as journalists from the guest’s side.

During the meeting with Zelenskyy, it was striking that Trump was keen to engage with Ukrainian journalists, because he repeatedly took questions from unfamiliar media representatives who were clearly expected to ask about Ukraine (whereas journalists from the American pool mostly asked about Iran).

Trump allowed some Ukrainian journalists to ask several questions. He even turned to the journalists and asked them what question he should ask Putin.

"Ask him when he will end this war," BBC Ukraine journalist Myroslava Petsa replied to the US president.

"That's a good question. I'll be asking that question," Trump responded.

But the main achievement of the Zelenskyy-Trump meeting was not the visible attention paid to Ukrainians and Ukrainian issues, nor Zelenskyy’s joke (brilliantly timed as it was) about why it is dangerous to visit Moscow. It was, of course, the substantive agreements reached.

What was agreed with Trump

The main agreement concerns US Patriot systems – Patriot interceptor missiles to be precise.

The shortage of PAC-3 anti-missile interceptors for Patriot systems, which are capable of shooting down ballistic missiles, is one of the systemic problems facing air defence, and not only Ukraine’s. The global shortage of interceptors has intensified dramatically during the Russia-Ukraine war. The capacity of Lockheed Martin’s PAC-3 production lines in the US is estimated at 600-700 units per year.

Given this persistent shortage, Kyiv long ago raised the issue of producing these missiles in Ukraine – to simplify logistics, ensure more reliable supplies, and reduce the global shortage.

For a long time Washington was categorically opposed to this. The resistance did not come from the manufacturer itself (which would also profit from Ukrainian production), but primarily from the US government’s refusal to grant a licence to export the technologies required. (Even European partners do not have localised PAC-3 production.)

It appears that in Ankara, this obstacle was finally overcome.

"One of the things I think we're going to be talking about today," Trump said, pointing at Zelenskyy, "a little birdie told me this – about the fact that we'll give them the right to make Patriots. We'll show them how to do it – it's very complex actually. But you'll figure out the complexity quickly."

"We're going to give a licence to you to make Patriots," Trump later repeated.

He also said he was confident that there would be no problem getting the manufacturer’s approval.

In his usual manner, Trump did not go into detail about exactly what he meant by "Patriots", but it would be reasonable to assume that he was referring to the interceptors rather than the systems themselves. According to European Pravda sources, Ukraine had requested PAC-3 interceptors and had received preliminary positive signals on this issue ahead of the Ankara meeting. Some Western media outlets such as the Financial Times have also reported that the discussion was specifically about these anti-ballistic missiles.

But obviously we still need to wait for an official US decision on this matter.

Launching production takes time, of course. Those missiles won’t reach Ukraine’s Armed Forces tomorrow, or even within a year.

Nevertheless, the official approval and the announcement of production lines in Ukraine will have an immediate impact. Countries supporting Ukraine that are reluctant to draw from their own missile stockpiles will gain a stronger argument for doing so. Once Ukrainian production begins, they will have greater certainty that they can replenish their inventories from the US manufacturer, which is currently focused on supplying Ukraine.

The second success of the Ankara summit concerns the Russia-Ukraine war and its conclusion.

This is less about a specific agreement and more about a change in the US’s attitude.

The clearest example was Trump’s public backing for Ukraine as regards the venue for the "peace talks" with Putin.

But an even more important indicator was Trump’s statement in support of long-range Ukrainian strikes against Russian economic targets such as oil refineries. In all previous years, Washington refused to take Ukraine’s side on this issue. At most, the US maintained neutrality by not commenting on these strikes, but more often it objected to them, including under Trump.

But in Ankara Trump acknowledged that even if Ukraine’s long-range attacks bring about an escalation of the hostilities and raise the conflict to a new level, Ukraine does have the right to carry them out.

"It's an escalation, but it's also an escalation that can help lead to an end [of the war – ed.]," Trump explained.

Relations with neighbours

A much more surprising outcome of the Ankara summit was the progress made towards reducing tensions between Ukraine and two of its neighbours – Poland and Hungary.

Let's add a bit of Polish context.

President Karol Nawrocki travelled from Warsaw to the NATO summit, but this was far from an obvious decision. Under Poland’s system of government, foreign policy powers largely rest with the prime minister, and Donald Tusk has no interest in sharing that authority with the president, his staunch political rival.

The fact that, despite this, Tusk handed over the right to represent Poland at the NATO summit to Nawrocki is explained mainly by US-related considerations.

Poland is one of the few European countries where both public opinion and all the major political parties still look favourably on the Trump administration. This has had positive consequences for the country and its security. In particular, when the Pentagon announced a reduction of its presence in Europe – including a planned reduction of troops in Poland – that decision was successfully reversed.

Maintaining good relations with the White House is a priority for all of Poland’s top officials. Nawrocki’s relationship with Trump is clearly better than Tusk’s. So it makes sense for them to share the responsibilities for Poland’s sake.

But the Polish political switcheroo also opened up an opportunity for Ukrainian-Polish diplomatic efforts.

Even before the NATO summit’s official dinner, to which President Zelenskyy was also invited, many people noticed that the organisers had placed the Ukrainian and Polish leaders next to each other in the official photo. Some joked that Zelenskyy had "used his wife to shield himself from Nawrocki" just to avoid talking to him.

But things turned out differently. At the summit dinner, away from the TV cameras, the presidents of Ukraine and Poland had a brief conversation and agreed to hold a more substantive meeting the following day. On Wednesday evening, after the summit session, they did just that.

The conversation lasted about an hour. We don’t yet know much about what they discussed, but the very fact that such a lengthy meeting took place between the two leaders after the White Eagle controversy indicates their willingness to seek out common ground.

Many also interpreted the remarks Nawrocki made after the evening meeting as a sign of readiness for more constructive dialogue with Ukraine.

There is no reason to hope that this meeting will resolve the historical dispute between Poland and Ukraine. But it is absolutely crucial to reduce the tension in relations between the two states.

And finally, Hungary.

In the aforementioned official summit photo, another neighbour appeared on the other side of Zelenskyy – Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar.

This, incidentally, is another indication that the arrangement was no accident. Credit should go to Turkish diplomacy here, because it’s the host country that determines the positions for the official photograph – there is no improvisation involved.

Next morning it was reported that Magyar had also spoken with Zelenskyy. They too agreed to hold a separate meeting.

But we need to add more context here too.

After Péter Magyar’s election victory, Ukraine had hoped for a somewhat speedier improvement in relations with Hungary. One of the obstacles to this has been the difficulty in arranging a meeting between the two leaders. Budapest put forward a demand that was unacceptable to Ukraine: that Zelenskyy and Magyar should meet in the Transcarpathian city of Berehove. Moreover, Péter Magyar announced this demand publicly, making it even less acceptable to Ukraine.

The reason is that Magyar can only invite a foreign leader to his own country – Hungary. And scheduling the meeting in Berehove made it sound as if he regards the city as Hungarian.

Ukraine has suggested various alternatives.

The first compromise was for the leaders to meet in Kyiv and then travel together to Berehove. Later, Budapest, Brussels and even other Ukrainian cities such as Lviv were suggested. But Magyar wouldn’t budge: it had to be Berehove or nowhere.

During the conversation in Ankara, the Hungarian position finally changed.

"We agreed that we will meet in the near future – in either Budapest or Kyiv – and then travel together to Berehove in Zakarpattia," Magyar said.

The arrangements have yet to be finalised at this point, but Kyiv has confirmed that the dialogue has begun to move forward. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has already met with his Hungarian counterpart, Anita Orbán, and there are hopes that a meeting between the leaders will take place soon. Such a meeting is needed, among other things, to unblock Hungary’s obstruction of Ukraine’s further progress toward EU membership and to open the remaining clusters for the accession negotiations.

The results of the Ankara summit are genuinely positive for Ukraine. They lay the foundation for further processes that Kyiv needs.

But the implementation of all these plans – from the meeting with Magyar to the production of Patriot missiles – still lies ahead.

Sergiy Sydorenko

Editor, European Pravda, from Ankara