‘Putin Is Mocking You’: The 4 Words That Sparked Trump’s Dramatic U-Turn on Ukraine

Key Points and Summary – A single, secret phone call on July 4th from Poland’s Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski, reportedly triggered President Trump’s dramatic policy U-turn on Ukraine.

-Sikorski informed Trump’s envoy that Russia had just launched a massive attack on Kyiv that struck the Polish consulate, framing the move as Vladimir Putin personally “mocking” Trump’s peace efforts.

-The insult, coming just after a Trump-Putin phone call, reportedly infuriated the President.

-He immediately ordered the Pentagon to reverse a freeze on military aid, a pivotal moment that led directly to resumed Patriot missile shipments and a tougher U.S. stance on Russia.

Why Trump Changes His Mind on Ukraine 

WARSAW, POLAND – It was early morning on July 4 – a Friday and one of the biggest annual US holidays.

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, was hoping to take a rest for at least part of the weekend.

Suddenly, Kellogg’s mobile phone lit up with a phone call with a +48 prefix, the country code for Poland.

On the line from Warsaw and six hours ahead of US East Coast time was Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski.

What he had to say to the American presidential envoy may very well end up changing the course of this war that has been on-going since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Sikorski had two kinds of news to relay to Kellogg: the bad kind and the worse kind.

The bad news was that overnight, Russia had mounted another one of its massive attacks on Ukrainian cities.

No less than 11 missiles and 539 drones had been launched at Kyiv alone.  At the time this was the largest Russian barrage against the Ukrainian capital since the war began.

(Although, since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military has exceeded even these numbers in subsequent attacks.)

One of the sites in the Ukrainian capital that was hit, as Sikorski reported, was the Polish consulate in central Kyiv, which took damage to the roof of the building in this barrage.

As the London Daily Telegraph, which is one of the outlets that broke the story this weekend, reported, “during the phone call, it was the heads-up about the embassy strike that appeared to resonate most with Gen. Kellogg.”

“As a retired three-star general, he knew this was the type of incident that leads to wars escalating and eventually spiralling out of control.  What happened next can be seen as the first in a series of events which ushered in Mr Trump’s pivot on Ukraine.”

The “what happened next” was the worse news.

“Putin is mocking your peace efforts,” the Oxford-educated Polish Foreign Minister continued with Kellogg.

There was only one way to turn this around and change the dynamic between Washington and Moscow, so that it no longer appeared Russia’s dictator and former KGB Lt. Col. was making a fool out of the White House.

“Please restore supplies of anti-aircraft ammunition to Ukraine,” he told Kellogg.

Trump Does an About-Face on Ukraine

The Pentagon, apparently without any coordination with those around Trump, had abruptly frozen shipments of weapon systems to Ukraine two days before.

The impression left with many parties, to include those watching the chain of events in Moscow, was that the Trump administration was on the verge of abandoning Ukraine and leaving it at the mercy of Russia’s war on Ukrainian cities.

Sikorski’s initiative to vector directly to Kellogg may very well turn out to be that pivotal moment that changed the course of this war – and what prompted Trump’s turnabout on support for Ukraine.

As soon as he had ended his call with Sikorski, Gen. Kellogg rang the president’s number. Kellogg reportedly began the call by wishing Trump an enjoyable July 4th weekend and congratulated him on successfully managing to have his “one, big, beautiful bill” passed by Congress.

Then Kellogg switched topics to the business of Ukraine. He reported on what Sikorski had told him.  The fact that this massive strike on Kyiv had come only hours after Putin and Trump had spoken on the telephone to discuss ending the war did not go down well with the 47th President of the US.

Trump had become increasingly frustrated with Putin’s refusal to curtail these massive strikes on Ukrainian cities, while at the same time dismissing any American proposals for a ceasefire.

Kellogg filled in Trump on the details of the latest attack on Kyiv and how the consulate of America’s NATO ally, Poland, had been hit in the process. He then laid out the rationale for resuming deliveries of Patriot air and missile defense systems to Ukraine.

Trump Responds 

Trump’s response was to immediately order the Pentagon to release the Patriot PAC-3 systems that a temporary freeze had held up on deliveries of US military aid.

The Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby, made the recommendation and then passed it on to Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, for his action.

The rationale from the DoD official was that there needed to be a determination of the state of US weapons stockpiles.

To ensure the logjam was broken, the American president directed Kellogg to call Hegseth and pass on his direct order that these deliveries to Kyiv be resumed.

Chain of Command

Trump had instructed Kellogg to contact Hegseth because he did not want a repeat of the previous announcement that deliveries of arms to Ukraine had been suspended.

That decision had been made without the White House or Congress being advised in advance.

Kellogg, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, and even Trump himself only learned of Hegseth’s directive when they read about it in the press.

There would be no repeat of the previous communications breakdown, which Kellogg ensured by calling the Defense Secretary himself and informing him directly of Trump’s decision to resume shipments of Patriot missiles to Ukraine.

He also told Hegseth that if he did not believe him, he should call the president himself.

On this same day, the US president also promised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a phone call, that he would now come to Kyiv’s aid in addressing their air defence requirements.

A Major Change in Direction on Ukraine 

This reversal of much of Trump’s previous position is being seen as a watershed moment.

It was only then that Trump finally comprehended that deal-making, schmoozing, cajoling, and trying to offer incentives – this tack would not work with Putin.

Only the application of American military might would ever get the Russian president to the negotiating table.

But, even with the US president’s direct order, it was reportedly still four days or more before the first batch of Patriot missiles began moving into Ukraine.

There had been a small number of PAC-3 interceptor missiles that were released by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, that were en route to Ukraine.

However, only 12 of these were immediately released after the call between Trump and Kellogg.

One Call Was a Game-Changer 

Ten days later, Trump met in the Oval Office with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and announced his $10 billion military aid package.

Additionally, he proposed 100 percent secondary trade tariffs on Russia and any country that continued to buy gas and oil from Moscow. This entire chain of events began with the phone call from Sikorski.

By the end of that week, a Patriot air-defence system and more interceptor missiles were already in Ukraine, after a deal that Washington struck with Germany.

Earlier this past week, Berlin announced an agreement with the US to donate another five batteries to Ukraine.

And the rest, as they say, will turn out to be history.

Ukraine may finally, almost three and a half years since the war began, find a way to “close the skies” over its country.

About the Author

Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.

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