WASHINGTON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday, with long-range Tomahawk missiles and the trajectory of the war with Russia on the agenda as Kyiv intensifies its push for U.S. military aid.
"Hopefully they won’t need it, hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks," Trump told reporters at the start of the meeting. "I think we’re fairly close to that."
The sit-down follows Trump’s phone call Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which Moscow warned that a U.S. decision to provide long-range Tomahawks to Kyiv would sharply escalate tensions. The missiles, which could be used to strike deep into Russia, would signal a “qualitatively new stage of escalation,” the Kremlin said.
Adding to the speculation, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised that more “firepower” was coming for Ukraine ahead of a NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels this week. It is not clear whether the Tomahawks were part of that.
The president sounded optimistic that an end to the conflict is still achievable, even as he conceded that it is “not an easy situation.”
"I think President Zelenskyy wants it done, and I think President Putin wants it done," Trump said. "All they have to do is get along a little bit."
"In the meantime, we’ll have them keep a little bit of distance, and we’re going to see if we can get it done," he added.
Asked earlier by a reporter if he could persuade Putin to end the war, Trump, while greeting Zelenskyy, replied, “Yep, we can.”
Zelenskyy arrives in Washington after a night of punishing strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, underscoring the push for more air defenses and long-range capabilities to pressure Russia to end the war.
The White House meeting on Friday capped a week of back-and-forth signaling from both leaders. Trump has publicly floated the possibility of providing Tomahawks, while Zelenskyy has framed the discussion as part of a broader effort to secure the weapons needed to deter Russia and defend critical infrastructure.
Zelenskyy has also struck an optimistic tone, suggesting that diplomatic breakthroughs elsewhere, as Trump has secured a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, could help create momentum for ending the war with Russia.
Trump appeared to acknowledge as much in his address to the Israeli parliament on Monday, saying, “Let’s focus on Russia first.”
Touting his record of settling conflicts while in office, Trump on Friday agreed that the momentum from reaching a deal in Gaza could help smooth negotiations with Russia.
“To the best of my knowledge, we’ve never had a president that solved one war,” Trump said. “Bush started a war. A lot of them started wars, but they don’t solve the wars.”
“This is pretty much the last one,” he said.
During his campaign for president last year, Trump promised to solve the war within 24 hours, but he has since conceded it is a more difficult task than he anticipated and turned his attention to other conflicts after months of negotiations with Moscow yielded little progress.
Returning from the Middle East on Monday, Trump said he was considering approving the Tomahawk missiles, saying they would offer “a new step of aggression” in the war against Russia. He also said he might tell Russia, “If this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send [Ukraine] Tomahawks.”
“We may not, but we may do it. I think it’s appropriate to bring up,” Trump said aboard Air Force One. “I want to see the war settled.”
He said he discussed the possibility with Zelenskyy during a call last weekend. “We’ll see,” Trump said.
Trump also said this week that he plans to meet with Putin in Budapest in the coming weeks after making “great progress” in their call on Thursday. It would be Trump’s second meeting with Putin in recent months as he seeks to bring the war to a close.
When the two leaders met this summer, Trump raised his voice several times at Putin and at one point threatened to walk out of their summit in Alaska, according to a source familiar with the meeting, confirming details first reported by the Financial Times.
The walkout threat came after the much-hyped meeting quickly went south, with Putin rejecting Trump’s ceasefire offer, then launching into a lengthy historical lecture about Russian and Ukrainian history.
The two spoke again by phone on Thursday for more than two hours. Speaking about the call, Trump said he had asked Putin in a “lighthearted” way if he would mind if he sent Tomahawks and that Putin opposed the move. “What do you think he’s going to say, ‘Please sell Tomahawks?’” Trump joked to reporters.
