US President Donald Trump hosts Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks at the White House on Friday, with the US leader signalling he may not be ready to sell Kyiv a long-range missile system that the Ukrainians say they desperately need.
Zelenskyy’s one-on-one with the US president comes a day after Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a lengthy phone call to discuss the conflict, culminating in the announcement that they would meet in Hungary.
In recent days, Trump has shown openness to selling Ukraine Tomahawk cruise missiles, even as Putin warned that such a move would further strain the US-Russian relationship.
But following Thursday’s call with Putin, Trump appeared to downplay the prospects of Ukraine getting the missiles, which have a range of about 1,600 kilometres.
“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too,” Trump said. “We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean we can’t deplete our country.”
