Donald Trump seemed more intent on brokering a peace deal than he was to supply Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles during a White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying that the US may need them for a future conflict.
While Trump did not rule out providing the long-range missiles Zelenskyy seeks, Trump appeared cool to the prospect as he looked ahead to a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Hungary in the coming weeks.
After speaking with Zelenskyy for more than two hours, Trump implored both Ukraine and Russia to “stop the war immediately”, even if it means Ukraine conceding territory.
“You stop at the battle line, and both sides should go home, go to their families,” Trump told reporters on his way to his home in West Palm Beach, Florida. “Stop the killing. And that should be it. Stop right now at the battle line. I told that to President Zelenskyy. I told it to President Putin.”
The Ukrainian leader was frank, telling Trump that Ukraine has thousands of drones ready for an offensive against Russian targets, but needs American missiles.
“We don’t have Tomahawks, that’s why we need Tomahawks,” he said.
Trump responded: “We’d much rather have them not need Tomahawks.”
Later, Trump reiterated that he wants the United States to hold on to its weaponry. “We want Tomahawks, also. We don’t want to be giving away things that we need to protect our country,” he said.
Trump’s doubtful tone on the cruise missiles follows a surprise phone call with Vladimir Putin on Friday during which the Russian leader told Trump that supplying the Tomahawks would damage US-Russian relations.
His position on supplying Ukraine with weapons has changed a number of times since he returned to office in January, often after negotiations with Putin or European backers of Ukraine.
During the White House meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump also discussed plans to hold a bilateral meeting with Putin in Hungary, saying it was “to be determined” whether Zelenskyy would join but that he would inform him of the discussions.
“There is a lot of bad blood,” Trump said.
After the talks on Friday, the US president issued a stern call to both sides on social media to “stop the killing, and make a DEAL!”.
“They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Zelenskyy told reporters he did not want to talk about long-range missiles, saying the US did not want escalation, and he was “realistic” about his chance of getting them.
The Ukrainian president, who spoke by phone with European leaders after the meeting, said he was counting on Trump to pressure Putin “to stop this war”.
The Kremlin’s top aide, Yuri Ushakov, earlier said Putin had initiated Thursday’s conversation with Trump, during which the Russian leader urged his US counterpart not to supply Ukraine with the Tomahawks.
“I did actually say: ‘Would you mind if I gave a couple of thousand Tomahawks to your opposition?’ I did say that to him. I said it just that way,” Trump said, recounting the conversation.
“He didn’t like the idea. You have to be a little bit lighthearted sometimes.”
Ushakov told reporters in Moscow that Putin warned Trump during the call that supplying Kyiv with Tomahawks “won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but would cause substantial damage to the relationship between our countries”.
It was the eighth known call between the two men since Trump began his second term in January, and followed a familiar pattern in the complex and often confusing contest between Putin and Zelenskyy for Trump’s ear.
On previous occasions, when Trump had seemed ready to tilt towards Kyiv and its European allies, a call from Putin was often followed by a sudden softening in the US leader’s tone towards Moscow.
A flurry of activity was also set off with Trump’s announcement after the call that he was planning to meet the Russian president in the Hungarian capital on a date still to be determined, in an effort to end the war.
Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, on Friday morning said that the summit could take place “within two weeks or later”.
Peskov said Putin had already discussed the planned meeting with Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister. Orbán – an outlier among European leaders with warm ties to Trump and Putin – said he had also spoken to Trump about the summit, writing on X: “Preparations for the USA-Russia peace summit are under way.”
It remains unclear how Putin would travel to Hungary, given EU sanctions and airspace restrictions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as the fact that he is wanted by the international criminal court (ICC). As a signatory to the ICC, Hungary would be obliged to arrest him, though Orbán has previously said this would not happen.
When asked about the logistical challenges, Peskov said the route was “so far, of course, unclear”.
Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said on Friday that Putin would be able to enter and leave the country. “There is no need for any kind of consultation with anyone, we are a sovereign country here. We will receive [Putin] with respect, host him and provide the conditions for him to negotiate with the American president,” he told a press briefing.
Trump and Putin last met in Alaska in August, which did not produce a diplomatic breakthrough. Trump added that fresh high-level talks between Washington and Moscow would be held next week, led on the US side by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, before a presidential summit in Budapest.
The latest conversation, which lasted more than two and a half hours, appears to have sapped the momentum Zelenskyy had built with Trump, with the US leader now unlikely to show significant support for Ukraine before meeting Putin.
“Zelenskyy must be pulling his hair out. Today’s meeting with Trump is now completely overshadowed and overtaken by the Budapest meeting,” said John Foreman, a former British defence attache to Moscow and Kyiv.
Trump also has hinted that talks between Putin and Zelenskyy may need to take place indirectly, contradicting Zelenskyy’s longstanding aim of meeting Putin face to face to end the war.
“They don’t get along too well, those two,” Trump said. “So we may do something where we’re separate. Separate but equal.”
Zelenskyy, who touched down in Washington on Thursday and met US defence contractors before his White House visit, has not commented on the Putin-Trump call, though few in Kyiv are likely to view it positively.
Some Ukrainian officials tried to put a positive spin on the call, saying that Putin’s outreach underscored the Russian leader’s fear of new Ukrainian weapon supplies.
“Today’s call between US President Donald Trump and Putin demonstrates how even the discussion about Tomahawk missiles had already forced Putin back into dialogue with America,” Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, wrote on X. “The conclusion is that we need to continue with strong steps. Strength can truly create momentum for peace.”.
While Moscow has repeatedly claimed it is ready to end its invasion of Ukraine, Putin has shown no indication he is seeking compromise or to scale back his maximalist goal of forcing Kyiv’s capitulation.
Despite Trump’s typically upbeat rhetoric that peace may be within reach, the US vice-president, JD Vance, struck a more cautious note on Thursday, saying that “the Russians and the Ukrainians are just not at the point where they can make a deal”, and that a settlement “remains possible but will require a lot more work”.
In an interview with the conservative network Newsmax, Vance spoke of what he called a “misalignment of expectations”, saying “the Russians tend to think they’re doing better on the battlefield than they actually are”.
Additional reporting by Jennifer Rankin
