President Trump Friday floated fresh hopes for an elusive peace in Ukraine and hinted Volodymyr Zelenskyy could join his upcoming summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Meeting with Zelenskyy in the White House, Trump said the Ukraine leader would be on standby to join the talks with Putin in Budapest, Hungary, in case a chance for a breakthrough emerges.
“Most likely it is going to be a double meeting. But we will have the President, Zelenskyy, in touch,” Trump said, adding that a face-to-face meeting between the warring parties is unlikely.
“There’s a lot of bad blood between the two presidents. I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn to say it.” Trump added. “These two leaders do not like each other and we want to make it comfortable for everybody,”
Both Trump and Zelenskyy hailed the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, and suggested it could build “momentum” behind peace talks with Russia, even though the conflicts are not directly related.
The two men said they planned to discuss Ukraine’s request to buy American Tomahawk guided missiles that could put much of Russia’s military industrial heartland in Kyiv’s crosshairs.
Trump said he hopes he can get Putin to the negotiating table without what he called an “escalation.”
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks,” Trump said.
Trump shrugged off the idea that the discussion of the new weaponry for Ukraine might have driven Putin to call him on Thursday and forge plans for the Budapest summit.
“The threat of that is always there,” Trump said. “Tomahawks are incredible weapons. They’re very powerful weapons…It’s a big deal.”
The meeting was the third White House meeting with Zelenskyy that Trump has held since he returned to power in January.
For his part, Zelenskyy effusively praised Trump and sought to keep any disagreements under wraps, at least in front of the gathered television cameras.
The Ukraine leader reprised the black suit he wore to their most recent White House meeting, turning the page on the wartime T-shirt look that Trump’s team found disrespectful at a contentious February sit down that devolved into a nasty shouting match.
It was the first meeting at the White House since Trump met with Putin for what proved to be an unsuccessful summit meeting in Alaska.
Trump said in the lead-up to the Putin summit that he hoped to convince Russia to accept an immediate cease-fire on the ground in Ukraine and a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy. Putin rejected both demands.
It’s unclear what Trump hopes to get out of the forthcoming summit hosted by Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary or what makes him think Putin will make concessions.
The meeting came as Ukraine has stabilized its military situation on the front lines in eastern Ukraine and has even spoken about mounting a counteroffensive at some point, perhaps in spring of 2026.
After months of slow but steady advances, Russian troops again appear to be stalled in a bloody stalemate in the strategic Donbas region as winter descends on the area.
The failure to make any major breakthroughs on the battlefield could nudge Putin to make concessions, some analysts say, especially if coupled with a fresh effort to arm Ukraine and potentially give Kyiv the opportunity to inflict more damage on Russian industry and infrastructure.
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