\u201cI think that President Putin wants to end the war,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
But Zelenskyy, who wore a dark suit for his third meeting with Trump in Washington since the US president\u2019s return to power, demurred, saying that Putin was \u201cnot ready\u201d for peace.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Cabinet Room of the White House. Photo \/ Tom Brenner, AFP<\/p>\n
Ukraine has been lobbying Washington for Tomahawks for weeks, arguing that they could help put pressure on Russia to end its brutal three-and-a-half year invasion.<\/p>\n
But on the eve of Zelenskyy\u2019s visit, Putin warned Trump in a call against delivering the weapons, saying it could escalate the war and jeopardise peace talks.<\/p>\n
Trump said the United States had to be careful to not \u201cdeplete\u201d its own supplies of Tomahawks, which have a range of over 1600 kilometres.<\/p>\n
\u2018Many questions\u2019<\/p>\n
Diplomatic talks on ending Russia\u2019s invasion have stalled since the Alaska summit.<\/p>\n
But 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.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin said \u201cmany questions\u201d needed resolving before Putin and Trump could meet, including who would be on each negotiating team.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin said \u201cmany questions\u201d needed resolving before Putin and Trump could meet. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
But it brushed off suggestions Putin would have difficulty flying over European airspace.<\/p>\n
Hungary said it would ensure Putin could enter and \u201chold successful talks\u201d with the US despite an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cBudapest is the only suitable place in Europe for a USA\u2013Russia peace summit,\u201d Hungarian President Viktor Orban said on X on Friday.<\/p>\n
Trump frustration<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy\u2019s visit to Washington, Ukraine\u2019s main military backer, will be his third since Trump returned to office.<\/p>\n
During this time, Trump\u2019s position on the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically back and forth.<\/p>\n
At the start of his term, Trump and Putin reached out to each other as the US leader derided Zelenskyy as a \u201cdictator without elections\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tensions came to a head in February, when Trump accused his Ukrainian counterpart of \u201cnot having the cards\u201d in a bombshell televised meeting at the Oval Office.<\/p>\n
Relations between the two have since warmed as Trump has expressed growing frustration with Putin.<\/p>\n
But Trump has kept a channel of dialogue open with Putin, saying that they \u201cget along\u201d. <\/p>\n
The US leader has repeatedly changed his position on sanctions and other steps against Russia following calls with the Russian President.<\/p>\n
Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, describing it as a \u201cspecial military operation\u201d to demilitarise the country and prevent the expansion of Nato.<\/p>\n
Kyiv and its European allies say the war is an illegal land grab that has resulted in tens of thousands of civilian and military casualties and widespread destruction.<\/p>\n
Russia now occupies around a fifth of Ukrainian territory \u2013 much of it ravaged by fighting. On Friday the Russian defence ministry announced it had captured three villages in Ukraine\u2019s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions.<\/p>\n
-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI think that President Putin wants to end the war,\u201d Trump said. But Zelenskyy, who wore a dark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2178,1888,2082,14154,42,64800,49531,78,2374,64797,43,2892,64798,2572,18661,8105,64794,2687,24352,2215,1361,64796,40,38,41,39,2179,3461,64799,6149,102,6730,64795],"class_list":["post-85031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald","tag-first","tag-for","tag-give","tag-headlines","tag-hoped","tag-hosted","tag-in","tag-meeting","tag-missiles","tag-news","tag-peace","tag-premature","tag-president","tag-pushes","tag-russia","tag-russiaukraine","tag-saying","tag-secure","tag-suggested","tag-that","tag-tomahawk","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trump","tag-ukraine","tag-volodymyr","tag-war","tag-with","tag-would","tag-zelenskyy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}