US President Donald Trump said on Friday he believed to be able to carry the momentum of the Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas towards successfully putting an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine, too.
“I think we carry a lot of momentum, a lot of credibility. Getting Middle East done was very important. Nobody thought it could be done”, Trump said.
“We got it done pretty swiftly after we set the table properly. We had to set the table properly. I think the table is set properly here too now”.
“It’ll be a great honour to get it done.”
The US president hopes his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin in Hungary will bring the end if the war closer, although he allowed for the possibility that Russian President may be trying to buy himself time.
“I am,” he said when asked whether he was concerned about Putin playing for time.
“You know, I’ve been played all my life by the best of them, and I came out really well,” he said.
“I think that he wants to make a deal,” Trump stated referring to Putin, claiming that both Zelenskyy and Putin were ready to end the war, but personal animosity between the leaders had delayed the process.
“I think President Zelensky wants it done and I think President Putin wants it done,” he said.
“Now all they have to do is get along a little bit.”
Zelenskyy restated his belief that Putin is “not ready” for peace, but added “I’m confident, with your help, we can stop this war.”
“I think this is the momentum to finish Russia’s war against Ukraine.”
After the meeting in the White House Zelenskyy had a call with some more of Ukraine’s strategic partners, including the leaders of the countries of the Coalition of the Willing.
Zelenskyy confirmed that the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the President of the European Council António Costa were on the call together with Finland’s Alexander Stubb, Norway’s Jonas Gahr Støre, the UK’s Keir Starmer, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and NATO’s Mark Rutte.
Zelenskyy admitted that the most “sensitive and difficult” question was the issue of Ukraine’s territories.
American Tomahawks for Ukrainian drones?
Until any ceasefire talks begin, the big question for Kyiv is whether Ukraine would get more weapons from the US. The possibility of selling Tomahawk missiles was on top of the agenda at the White House meeting in Friday.
Donald Trump said he hopes Tomahawks won’t be needed in peace efforts aimed at Putin and end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks”, Trump said, adding that the US needs its Tomahawks and “a lot of other weapons that we’re sending to Ukraine.”
Zelenskyy countered by pointing out that the sending doesn’t have to be a one-way street:
“If you want to target a military goal, you need thousands of drones,” Zelenskyy said.
“It goes together with such missiles. The United States has Tomahawks and other missiles, very strong missiles, but they can also have our thousands of drones. That’s where we can work together.”
Donald Trump confirmed Washington’s interest: “We would be interested in Ukrainian drones. We build our own drones, but we also buy drones from others. And they make very good drones.”
The possibility of Ukraine getting Tomahawk missiles triggered worry and sabre-rattling from Moscow over the past few days.
The Kremlin said it is causing “extreme concern” in Russia, adding that the war is entering what spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called a “dramatic moment in terms of the fact that tensions are escalating from all sides”.
Before traveling to the US, Zelenskyy had said that part of the agenda for the trip included talks on what Kyiv calls “Mega Deal”, an agreement on the purchase of American weapons, and a so-called “Drone deal” to to sell Ukraine-made drones to the US.
The deal was initially earmarked to be worth around 77 billion euros.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy estimated in June that his country had the capacity to make 8 million drones a year, but lacked the funding to do so.
Upcoming meeting in Hungary
President Donald Trump said today that the upcoming meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Budapest, Hungary, will be just those two countries, but he noted that the US will be in touch with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“It’s going to be a double meeting,” the US president said. “But we will have the President Zelenskyy in touch. There’s a lot of bad blood with the two presidents, and I’m not speaking out of turn when I say it.”
Zelenskyy said “Putin hates me” explaining why Russian president refuses to meet with him.
When asked by journalists “Do you hate him?” he admitted “They (Russia) try to kill of us. It would be strange if I had any other attitude to this person.”
Zelenskyy reiterated once again that he is ready to meet Putin in any format, pointing out that now only the US and Donald Trump have direct communication with Moscow.
Putin only agreed to meet Donald Trump when the two leaders had a summit in Alaska in August. Since then the US president stated he can bring Zelenskyy and Putin to the table in a bilateral format and that he was ready to join the two. But since the Alaska meeting the Kremlin’s stance hasn’t changed.
Commenting on the upcoming meeting in Hungary, Donald Trump said “it is a safe country”.
“It is a leader that we like. We like Viktor Orbán. He has been a very good leader in the sense of running his country. He doesn’t have a lot of the problems that other counties have. I think he’ll be a very good host”.
Earlier in the summer Hungary offered to host the trilateral meeting between Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin, together with Austria, Switzerland and the Vatican.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Putin for the abduction of Ukrainian children limits the choice of location as he risks arrest in any of the court’s 125 member states if he steps foot into their territory.
Earlier this year, Hungary became the first member of the EU to announce its intention to withdraw from the court in response to the arrest warrant placed on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which Hungary, like the US, had contested.
But Hungary’s withdrawal will not take effect until June 2026, one year after it filed the notification. In the interim period, the country remains bound by the tribunal.
