Trump to meet Zelensky after announcing Putin summit
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets Donald Trump at the White House on Friday and is seeking US-made Tomahawk missiles as the US president reaches out to Russia’s Vladimir Putin for a new summit.
Zelensky will be making his third visit to Washington since Trump’s return to office, as the US leader’s stance on the war has been hot and cold, following a disastrous televised shout-out in February and a make-up meeting in August.
Trump’s last move took place on the eve of Zelensky’s visit. He announced that he would meet Putin in Budapest to launch a new initiative to reach a peace agreement and end the occupation that Moscow launched in 2022.
Ukraine hoped that Zelensky’s trip would be aimed at increasing pressure on Putin, particularly through the acquisition of American-made long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles that could strike deep into Russia.
But Trump, who once said he could end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, appears to be pursuing a new diplomatic breakthrough following the Gaza ceasefire agreement he brokered last week.
Trump said Thursday that he had a “very productive” meeting with Putin and that they will meet in the Hungarian capital in the next two weeks. He added that he hoped to have “separate but equal” talks with both Putin and Zelensky, but did not elaborate.
When Zelensky arrived in Washington on Thursday, he said he hoped Trump’s success on the Gaza deal would bring results that would end the war that has left much of his country in ruins.
“We expect the successful momentum in stopping terrorism and war in the Middle East to help end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Zelensky told X. he said.
Zelensky insisted that the Tomahawk threat forced Moscow to negotiate.
“We can already see that Moscow is rushing to restart the dialogue as soon as it hears about the Tomahawks,” Zelensky said, adding that he would also meet with US defense companies to discuss the supply of additional air defense systems.
– ‘I don’t like it’ –
But Trump cast doubt on whether Ukraine could obtain the coveted weapons, which have a range of 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers).
Trump told reporters on Thursday that the United States “can’t run out” of its own supply. “We need them too, so I don’t know what we can do about it,” he said.
The US president said he “didn’t like” that the Russian leader raised the possibility during his call to give Ukraine a Tomahawk.
The Kremlin said on Thursday that it had begun urgent preparations for the Budapest summit after Putin-Trump’s “extremely cordial and trustworthy” meeting.
But Putin told Trump that giving Ukraine a Tomahawk “will not change the situation on the battlefield” and “will harm the prospects for a peaceful solution,” Yuri Ushakov, the Russian president’s top aide, told reporters.
Trump’s relations with Putin and Zelensky, a leader for whom he has repeatedly expressed admiration over the years, have wavered wildly since his return to the White House in January.
After the initial rapprochement, Trump became increasingly frustrated with Putin; especially since Putin left a meeting with the Russian President in Alaska with no end to the war in sight.
Zelensky, meanwhile, went the opposite route, regaining Trump’s support after a disastrous Oval Office encounter in which the US President and Vice President J.D. Vance berated him in front of the cameras.
The Ukrainian returned in August wearing a suit, after being mocked for not wearing it at the first meeting, and joined by a number of Western leaders in solidarity.
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