Ukraine’s outgoing ambassador to the United States, Olga Stefanishyna, said the relationship between Kyiv and Washington has improved markedly and the “overall dynamics” have shifted, as Ukraine moves from asking for support to offering the Trump administration concrete deliverables.
“Ukraine should be this success case for President Trump,” Stefanishyna told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast on Thursday, describing the turnaround in ties since the contentious Oval Office meeting with Trump and Vice President JD Vance in February 2025.
In just the past six weeks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has had two phone calls and three meetings with Trump, including one earlier this week. Stefanishyna credited recent personnel changes at the State Department and the White House, saying they “helped the process.”
Kyiv now provides “regular updates” about its military situation, she said, and has shifted its approach from seeking military, political and moral support to producing concrete deliverables, including on defense industrial cooperation and Patriot missile system production. Plans to produce Patriot interceptors in Ukraine are progressing, with current estimates ranging from 12 months to five years. Raytheon teams have already visited Ukraine, Lockheed Martin is seeking approvals to send technical personnel, and the White House requested a roadmap for establishing the capability after Zelenskyy and Trump met in Ankara a few weeks ago, she said.
Asked about possible visits to Kyiv by envoys Steve Witkoff or Jared Kushner, Stefanishyna confirmed the topic was raised in this week’s Oval Office meeting, though she declined to give a date. “It might happen next week, it might happen later,” she said, indicating both planned to travel to Moscow after Ukraine. She said Ukraine was putting much stock in reinvigorated diplomacy to reach a ceasefire before “the deadliest winter.”
On air defenses, Stefanishyna noted that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attended the Oval Office meeting and said there were no “firm commitments” for additional air defenses before winter, but discussions are under way on long-term procurement deals and potential missile swaps with countries that already have contracts. She pointed to the Russian cruise missile that reached Poland this week as proof the threat extends beyond Ukraine: “We did our best to destroy this missile… but we were not successful.”
The ambassador said Ukraine has been able to combat what she called a prior, erroneous narrative that Russia was winning the war, now in its fifth year, and called Ukraine’s long-range attacks into Russia a “game-changer.” “Russians saw the missiles in places Russia [has] never seen any missiles, like for centuries,” she said. She voiced hope that Congress will enact the sanctions bill that the late Senator Lindsey Graham was working on, predicting a “devastating effect” on Russia if it becomes law within two to three months.
Stefanishyna said she chose to step down amid domestic political pressures and an ongoing asset-declaration investigation, and that Zelenskyy did not ask her to resign and wanted her to remain while negotiations over Patriot production are at a critical stage. On Iran, she insisted Ukraine has no policy to interconnect the two conflicts, calling a recent Ukrainian strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea “unintentional.”
Sources: CBS News, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian
Author: Ukraine Desk
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