President Donald Trump remained noncommittal on the issue of long-range missiles for Ukraine on Friday as he sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House.
“We will be talking about that,” Trump said when asked if he would provide Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. “That’s why we’re here.”
Trump is meeting Zelenskyy at the White House for the third time this year as part of an effort to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Zelenskyy signaled beforehand that he would request access to long-range missiles, and Trump, who has grown impatient with Russian President Vladimir Putin as the war drags on, suggested he might be willing to comply.
But on Thursday, before Zelenskyy was set to arrive at the White House, Putin called Trump, renewing lines of communication between the White House and counterparts in Russia. Trump pronounced the meeting “very productive” and said he and Putin would meet in Budapest.
The conversation between Putin and Trump injected a degree of uncertainty into the Zelenskyy meeting. That continued when Zelenskyy and Ukrainian officials sat down with Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Cabinet members and welcomed reporters into the room.
Zelenskyy told reporters he had a proposal for the White House in which long-range missiles would be exchanged for Ukrainian drones. Trump signaled openness to this.
“We have a lot of drones right now, we build our own drones, but we also buy drones from others, and they make a very good drone,” Trump said. “Drone warfare has really come to the fore over the last couple of years because of this war. ”
Zelenskyy reiterated the need for security guarantees, which Trump has previously said he was willing to extend to Ukraine when the war comes to an end.
Trump reaffirmed his faith in Putin’s sincerity about wanting to bring the war to a close.
“You know, I’ve been played all my life by the best,” Trump said when asked if Putin was just trying to buy time. “I think that he wants to make a deal. I made eight of them. I think he wants to make a deal.”