Zelenskyy said discussions military assets from the U.S. — including Tomahawk missiles — motivated Putin to meet with Trump in Budapest.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that discussions over a transfer of military assets from the United States — including its coveted Tomahawk cruise missiles — has motivated Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet President Donald Trump in Budapest, a new diplomatic booking that Trump announced on Truth Social Thursday.
Trump’s announcement of a meeting with Putin — which he said would take place in the next two weeks — comes a day before he’ll meet with Zelenskyy for the third time in Washington and as U.S. officials have touted a new mechanism by which European allies purchase American-made military hardware for Ukraine’s fight.
Trump has mused publicly about the possibility of sending the Tomahawks, which have a range of up to 1,500 miles, to Ukraine, while Zelenskyy has said a sale of the long-range weapons could bolster its war effort.
Trump said that he and Putin „didn’t say much“ about the topic of Tomahawks in a phone call Thursday, but they „did talk about it a little bit.“ The president hedged on the possibility of releasing the missiles from the U.S. stockpile, noting „we need Tomahawks for the United States.“
„We can’t deplete [them] for our country“, he said. „I don’t know what we can do about that.“
Trump was more bullish on Sunday, saying „If this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks.“
Upon landing in Washington Thursday, Zelenskyy said the agreement for a Budapest meeting was a product of the U.S’s public pressure.
„Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks“, he wrote on X.
In a meeting of U.S. officials and a Ukrainian delegation in Washington, officials on both sides welcomed the news of a Trump-Putin meeting, according to a U.S. official. The officials believed Trump’s phone call with Putin could yield progress for his meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday, the source said.
Tomahawks: Scarce but impactful
The U.S. would have to be careful doling out the missiles in light of „underinvestment“ in its munitions stockpile, said Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Centers for Strategic and International Security.
