Washington (AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets Donald Trump at the White House Friday to push the US leader for long-range Tomahawk missiles that can strike deep inside Russia. The meeting comes a day after Trump threw Zelensky a curveball by announcing a fresh summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump also cast doubt on whether he would grant Ukraine’s wish for the powerful Tomahawk cruise missiles, saying Washington could not “deplete” its own supplies.
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. But on the eve of Zelensky’s visit, Putin warned Trump in a call against delivering the weapons, saying it could escalate the war and jeopardize peace talks. Trump and Putin agreed to a new summit in the Hungarian capital Budapest, which would be their first since an August meeting in Alaska that failed to produce any kind of peace deal.
Diplomatic talks on ending Russia’s invasion have stalled since the Alaska summit. Ukraine had hoped Zelensky’s trip would add more pressure on Putin, especially by getting Tomahawks, which have a range of over 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles). 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.
The Kremlin said Friday that “many questions” needed resolving before Putin and Trump could meet, including who would be on each negotiating team. “It could indeed take place within two weeks or a little later. There’s an understanding that nothing should be put off,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. But the Kremlin appeared to brush off suggestions Putin would have difficulty flying over European airspace. Hungary said Friday it would ensure Putin could enter and “hold successful talks” with the US despite an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes. “Budapest is the only suitable place in Europe for a USA–Russia peace summit,” Hungarian President Viktor Orban said on X on Friday.
Zelensky’s visit to Washington, Ukraine’s main military backer, will be his third since Trump returned to office. During this time, Trump’s position on the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically back and forth. At the start of his term, Trump and Putin reached out to each other as the US leader derided Zelensky as a “dictator without elections.” Tensions came to a head in February when Trump accused his Ukrainian counterpart of “not having the cards” in a bombshell televised meeting at the Oval Office. Relations between the two have since warmed as Trump has expressed growing frustration with Putin.
But Trump has kept a channel of dialogue open with Putin, saying that they “get along.” The US leader has repeatedly changed his position on sanctions and other steps against Russia following calls with the Russian president. Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, describing it as a “special military operation” to demilitarize the country and prevent the expansion of NATO. 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. Russia now occupies around a fifth of Ukrainian territory — much of it ravaged by fighting. On Friday, the Russian defense ministry announced it had captured three villages in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions.
© 2024 AFP
