Donald Trump on Friday met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and suggested that it would be premature to give Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.
Zelenksyy, after the meeting said that he and Trump had talked about long-range missiles, but decided not to make statements on the issue "because the United States does not want an escalation".
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Trump held a phone call prior to the latter’s meeting with Zelenskyy.
United States president Donald Trump on Friday met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and suggested that it would be premature to give Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. He said that he would hope to secure peace with Russia first, AFP reported.
“Hopefully they won’t need it. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks,” Trump told journalists as the two leaders met at the White House.
Zelenksyy, after the meeting said that he and Trump had talked about long-range missiles, but decided not to make statements on the issue "because the United States does not want an escalation".
Following the meeting, Trump took to social media to call for Kyiv and Moscow to "stop where they are" and end the war.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Trump held a phone call prior to the latter’s meeting with Zelenskyy. The US and the Russian president are set to meet at the Hungarian summit, after truce talk failed in Alaska on August 15 this year.
Zelenksyy believes that the Tomahawk cruise missiles that could be employed to strike at Russian oil and energy facilities would severely weaken Putin's war economy. He also praised Trump for the first phase of the ceasefire deal being implemented in the Middle East and called on him to build on that momentum to help end Russia's war in Ukraine.
Ukraine has been eyeing the missiles for over a year now. The sought after cruise missiles have a range of over 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles). Trump said the United States had to be careful to not “deplete” its own supplies of Tomahawks.
In a post on X, Zelenskyy said he had called European leaders to share details of the meeting with Trump, adding that the "main priority now is to protect as many lives as possible, guarantee security for Ukraine, and strengthen all of us in Europe."
