US President Donald Trump will host Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, but he’s now signalling hesitation over selling Ukraine the long-range Tomahawk missiles it’s been desperately seeking.
The meeting comes just a day after Trump held a lengthy phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where the two discussed the ongoing war in Ukraine. The conversation appears to have cooled Trump’s earlier openness to arming Kyiv with the powerful weapons.
“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too,” Trump told reporters. “We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean, we can’t deplete our country.”
Balancing act between Moscow and Kyiv
Trump had recently indicated he might approve the sale of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, despite Putin’s warning that such a move would seriously damage relations between Washington and Moscow.
Following Thursday’s call, however, Trump downplayed the prospect. Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said Putin told the US president that giving Kyiv the missiles “won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but would cause substantial damage to relations between our countries.”
Despite that warning, Trump described his discussion with Putin as “very productive” and announced that the two leaders will meet soon in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss potential steps toward ending the war.
Senior officials, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are expected to meet their Russian counterparts next week at an undisclosed location.
Friday’s face-to-face will be the fourth meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy since he returned to office in January, and their second in less than a month.
What makes Tomahawks so significant?
The Tomahawk cruise missile, with a range of around 995 miles, would give Ukraine the ability to strike deep inside Russian territory, far beyond the reach of its current arsenal.
By comparison, Ukraine’s Extended Range Attack Munitions (ERAM) can reach around 285 miles (460 km), while its Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) extend roughly 186 miles (300 km).
Earlier this year, the US approved the sale of 3,350 ERAM missiles to Ukraine. But Zelenskyy has continued to press for Tomahawks, arguing that such strikes could force Putin to take peace negotiations more seriously.
Trump’s shifting stance
Fresh from brokering a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, Trump has said that ending the war in Ukraine is now his top foreign policy priority.
But his tone toward the conflict, and toward Putin, has noticeably shifted. Last month, Trump suggested he believed Ukraine could “win back all the territory lost to Russia,” a sharp reversal from his earlier calls for Kyiv to make concessions.
Following his latest call with Putin, though, Trump adopted a more cautious stance, hinting that any future peace talks might have to be conducted indirectly.
“They don’t get along too well, those two,” he said. “So we may do something where we’re separate, separate but equal.”
A diplomatic test for Washington
Trump’s renewed diplomatic push follows a flurry of high-level meetings earlier this year, including a summit with Putin in Alaska and discussions with Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House.
Those talks left Trump convinced he was close to arranging direct negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, but Russia has since intensified its attacks and shown no interest in compromise.
As Trump prepares to meet Zelenskyy again, the world will be watching closely, not only to see if his peace efforts can gain traction, but to determine where Washington’s support for Ukraine truly stands after his latest conversation with the Kremlin.
