“They should stay where they are. Let both claim victory,” the president wrote online, referring to the current front line in Ukraine, on the flight from Washington to his estate in Florida. After the landing, he also demanded that both sides “now stop at the front line.” Otherwise it would be “too complicated”.
The US President once again expressed his confidence that he would be able to persuade Kremlin boss Putin to end the war. Ukraine will “hopefully” not need these weapons at all, Trump said after the meeting, referring to the Tomahawk cruise missiles with their long range of around 1,600 kilometers. “Hopefully we will be able to end the war without thinking about tomahawks.”
Zelensky, who was lambasted by Trump in front of cameras at a meeting in the Oval Office in February, contradicted the US president and said Putin was “not ready” for peace. Zelensky emphasized to journalists that Russia was “afraid” of the Tomahawks because they were a “powerful weapon.” But he was “realistic” about their delivery: although he had spoken to Trump about it, the USA “did not want any escalation”.
Zelensky later told the US broadcaster NBC, referring to a tomahawk delivery, that it was “good that President Trump didn’t say no, but he didn’t say yes either.”
The Ukrainian government had been asking the US government for Tomahawk cruise missiles for weeks and described the hoped-for delivery as the most important topic of the meeting between Trump and Zelensky. Tomahawks would enable Kyiv to launch attacks deep into Russian territory.
At the meeting, Zelensky also offered Trump a trade deal: the US would have tomahawks and could get “thousands of drones” from Ukraine in return. According to information from Ukrainian delegation circles, Zelensky also showed Trump a map with possible targets for attacks in Russia, on which the locations of the Russian arms industry were listed.
Trump, however, weighed it down: supplying Ukraine with Tomahwks despite Putin’s warnings could lead to a “major escalation,” he warned. “It could lead to a lot of bad things happening,” said the US president.
After arriving in Washington on Thursday, Zelensky had already held talks with representatives of the US defense company Raytheon, which produces Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot air defense systems. “We discussed Raytheon’s production capabilities and possible avenues for cooperation to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense and long-range capabilities,” Zelensky said. A possible joint US-Ukrainian production was also discussed.
The prospect that the USA could supply Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles is forcing Moscow to negotiate, Zelenskyj explained on the online service X after his arrival in the USA. “We can already see that Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue.”
Last weekend, Trump said he could threaten Putin with supplying tomahawks to Kiev if Russia did not stop its attacks on Ukraine. After a phone call with Putin on Thursday, he then announced a meeting with the Kremlin leader in Hungary’s capital Budapest. The goal is to find out “whether we can end this inglorious war between Russia and Ukraine.” The meeting could take place in around two weeks.
Shortly after his meeting with Trump, Zelensky also phoned allies from Europe, according to information from Ukrainian delegation circles. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) said on X that Zelensky had “the full support of Germany and European friends on the path to peace.” “After his meeting with President Trump, we coordinated and will accompany the next steps. Now Ukraine needs a peace plan,” added Merz.
