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.
