Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected at the White House on Tuesday for talks with Donald Trump, to try again to win the US president’s support against Russia. The visit comes as Kyiv and Moscow both ramp up long-range strikes and diplomatic efforts launched by Washington remain at a standstill, more than four years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Relations between Zelensky and Trump have long been strained, but the US leader has in recent weeks shown greater indulgence to his Ukrainian counterpart. A White House official told AFP last Friday that the two men would meet in Washington on Tuesday, on the same day as a planned tribute for Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Ukraine supporter, who died this month aged 71. “We are preparing for a meeting with the president of the United States and his team,” Zelensky said, adding that he hoped that Washington “will continue to support Ukraine and that we can end this war with a dignified peace”.
Since his return to power in January last year, Trump has largely ended direct deliveries of US arms to Kyiv in favour of the PURL programme, which allows Europeans to buy weapons and then supply them to Ukraine. Washington, though, remains a major ally of Kyiv, providing it notably with intelligence and access to the Starlink satellite system that allows its frontline troops to communicate.
At a previous meeting in Washington in October 2025, Zelensky failed to convince Trump to provide Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles. During heated exchanges in the Oval Office in February that year, both raised their voices during an argument in the full glare of television cameras. Trump accused Zelensky of ingratitude and “gambling with World War Three”. The US leader has since changed his tone, and during their last encounter in Turkey earlier this month, he offered words of encouragement, saying he had done “an amazing job”. He also announced his intention to allow Ukraine to produce anti-aircraft Patriot missiles, which are badly needed to face down Russian attacks.
In another sign of easing tensions, US influencers close to the MAGA orbit, such as Laura Loomer and Tim Pool, have recently voiced their support for Ukraine after having long opposed aid to Kyiv. Zelensky met last week with Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about how to “reinvigorate diplomacy” that has stalled since the start of the US-Israeli war in the Middle East in February. Previous US mediation efforts between Moscow and Kyiv failed due to disagreements about the thorny question of Ukrainian territories claimed by Russia.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have cooled recently after efforts which saw Trump invite Vladimir Putin for a summit in Alaska in August last year. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday denied that talks about an aerial ceasefire were under way. Earlier this month, he warned that the intensification of Ukrainian strikes on Russia would only prolong the war. In recent weeks, Ukraine has multiplied its attacks on Russian oil depots and refineries, leading to a fuel crisis. It has targeted cargo vessels in the Sea of Azov and a number of warehouses of the Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries.
Russia, for its part, has maintained its massive strikes and stopped Ukrainian agricultural exports by sea by bombarding the port of Odesa and vessels that use it. During a meeting in the Filipino capital, Manila, last week, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned his US counterpart Marco Rubio about supplying weapons to Ukraine. The encounter was the two men’s first since September last year and only lasted about 30 minutes. Afterwards, Rubio restated Washington’s desire to play a “constructive” role to end the war, but was wary of Moscow’s proposals. Trump and Putin last held a telephone conversation on July 5.
© 2024 AFP
