WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is set to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks at the White House on Friday. However, the U.S. leader signaled he’s not ready to agree to sell Kyiv a long-range missile system that the Ukrainians say they desperately need.
Zelenskyy’s one-on-one meeting with Trump comes a day after the U.S. president and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a lengthy phone call to discuss the ongoing conflict. In recent days, Trump had shown openness to selling Ukraine long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, despite Putin’s warning that such a move would further strain U.S.-Russian relations.
Following Thursday’s call with Putin, Trump appeared to downplay the prospects of Ukraine receiving the missiles, which have a range of about 995 miles (1,600 kilometers). “We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too,” Trump said. “We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean we can’t deplete our country.”
Zelenskyy has been seeking these weapons to enable Ukrainian forces to strike deep into Russian territory, targeting key military sites, energy facilities, and critical infrastructure. He argues that such strikes could compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations more seriously.
During the call, Putin warned Trump that supplying Kyiv with Tomahawks “won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but would cause substantial damage to the relationship between our countries,” according to Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that even the discussion of providing Tomahawks had already served its purpose by pushing Putin into talks. “The conclusion is that we need to continue with strong steps. Strength can truly create momentum for peace,” Sybiha said on the social platform X late Thursday.
This meeting will mark the fourth face-to-face encounter between Trump and Zelenskyy since the Republican returned to office in January, and their second in less than a month. Following Thursday’s call with Putin, Trump announced plans to meet the Russian leader soon in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss ways to end the war. The two also agreed that their senior aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, would meet next week at an unspecified location.
Fresh from brokering a ceasefire and hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas, Trump has declared that finding an endgame to the war in Ukraine is now his top foreign policy priority. He expressed new confidence about the prospects of achieving this goal.
Ahead of his call with Putin, Trump had shown signs of increased frustration with the Russian leader. Last month, he stated his belief that Ukraine could win back all territory lost to Russia — a dramatic shift from his earlier repeated calls for Kyiv to make concessions to end the war.
As he returned to his 2024 campaign, Trump insisted he would quickly end the war. However, his peace efforts appeared to stall following a diplomatic blitz in August, which included a summit with Putin in Alaska and a White House meeting with Zelenskyy and European allies. Trump left those meetings confident he was on track to arranging direct talks between Zelenskyy and Putin.
Despite these efforts, Putin has shown no interest in meeting with Zelenskyy, and Moscow has intensified its bombardment of Ukraine.
Trump, for his part, adopted a notably more neutral tone about Ukraine following what he described as a “very productive” call with Putin. He also hinted that negotiations between Putin and Zelenskyy might need to be conducted indirectly.
“They don’t get along too well, those two,” Trump said. “So we may do something where we’re separate. Separate but equal.”
https://wsvn.com/news/politics/ahead-of-zelenskyy-meeting-trump-shows-signs-he-might-not-be-ready-to-send-kyiv-tomahawk-missiles/