Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to meet Donald Trump at the White House, seeking US-made Tomahawk missiles even as the US president reaches out to Russia’s Vladimir Putin for a fresh summit.
Mr Zelensky will be making his third trip to Washington since Mr Trump returned to office, following a disastrous televised shouting match in February and a make-up meeting in August.
Mr Trump’s latest pivot came on the eve of Mr Zelensky’s visit. He announced that he would be meeting Mr Putin in Budapest, in a fresh bid to reach a peace deal and end Moscow’s invasion launched in 2022.
Ukraine had hoped Mr Zelensky’s trip would be more about adding to the pressure on Mr Putin, especially by getting US-made long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles that can strike deep into Russia.
But Mr Trump, who once said he could end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, appears set on pursuing a new diplomatic breakthrough to follow the Gaza ceasefire deal that he brokered last week.
He said yesterday that he had a “very productive” call with Mr Putin and that they would meet in the Hungarian capital within the next two weeks. He added that he hoped to have “separate but equal” meetings with both Mr Putin and Mr Zelensky but did not elaborate.
Mr Zelensky said as he arrived yesterday in Washington that he hoped Mr Trump’s success with the Gaza deal would bring results to end the war that has left swathes of his own country in ruins.
“We expect that the momentum of curbing terror and war that succeeded in the Middle East will help to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” he said on X.
Mr Zelensky insisted that the threat of Tomahawks had forced Moscow to negotiate.
“We can already see that Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks,” Mr Zelensky said, adding that he will also be meeting US defence companies to discuss additional supplies of air defence systems.
Mr Trump however cast doubt on whether Ukraine would ever get the coveted weapons, which have a 1,600km range, telling reporters that the United States could not “deplete” its own supply.
“We need them too, so I don’t know what we can do about that,” he said.
The US president said the Russian leader “didn’t like it” when he raised the possibility during their call of giving Tomahawks to Ukraine.
The Kremlin said it was making immediate preparations for a Budapest summit after what it called the “extremely frank and trustful” Putin-Trump call.
But Mr Putin told Mr Trump that giving Ukraine Tomahawks would “not change the situation on the battlefield” and would harm “prospects for peaceful resolution,” the Russian president’s top aide Yuri Ushakov said.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he would talk to Mr Putin later today as Budapest has started preparations for the summit.
Mr Orban, a long-time Trump ally who has also kept close ties with Russia despite the war in Ukraine, said the meeting “will be about peace” and if there is a peace deal, that would lead to a new phase of economic development in Hungary and Europe.