LAST UPDATE | 17 Oct

DONALD TRUMP HAS said Russia’s war can end without providing US long-range missiles to Ukraine, spelling dissapointment for Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who came to the White House looking to bolster his country’s defence.

It comes as the US president readies for another summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

It’s Zelenskyy’s third trip to Washington since Trump returned to office, following a disastrous televised shouting match in February and a make-up meeting in August.

Trump’s stance on the conflict has been hot and cold. 

In today’s meeting, he suggested it would be premature to give Ukraine Tomahawk missiles, saying that he hoped to secure peace with Russia first.

“Hopefully they won’t need it. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over with without thinking about Tomahawks,” Trump told reporters as he sat opposite Zelenskyy in the Cabinet Room of the White House.

Zelenskyy in the Cabinet Room Alamy Alamy

Trump also said that Putin “wants to end the war,” after Zelensky said that the Russian leader was “not ready” for peace.

Trump, who once said he could end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, appears set on pursuing diplomacy following the Gaza ceasefire deal he brokered last week.

He said yesterday that he had a “very productive” call with Putin and that they would meet in the Hungarian capital within the next two weeks. He added that he hoped to have “separate but equal” meetings with both Putin and Zelenskyy but did not elaborate.

Zelenskyy said as he arrived in Washington yesterday that he hoped Trump’s success with the Gaza deal would bring results to end the war that has left swaths of his own country in ruins.

“We expect that the momentum of curbing terror and war that succeeded in the Middle East will help to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said on X.

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Zelenskyy insisted that the threat of Tomahawks had forced Moscow to negotiate.

“We can already see that Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks,” he said.

The Ukrainian leader said on Friday he had met officials from US defense firm Raytheon, which produces the Tomahawk missiles and Patriot systems, to discuss cooperation and “the prospects for Ukrainian-American joint production.”

Zelenskyy said he also held talks with Lockheed Martin, which makes F-16 fighter jets.

CNN reports that the US will begin sharing intelligence on Russia’s energy infrastructure with Ukraine, which Kyiv was previously told was off limits after Trump’s August meeting with Putin in Alaska.

With reporting by AFP