Trump says U.S. to consider more air-defense batteries for Ukraine
Donald Trump said he will look into sending more Patriot air-defense batteries to Ukraine following “a good” meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as allies seek more U.S. pressure on Russia to end the war.
Zelenskyy described the 45-minute encounter at a NATO summit on Wednesday as “long and substantive.” It was their first meeting since Kyiv and Moscow resumed direct talks to try to end the war. As the negotiations foundered, Russia hit Ukraine with a series of deadly aerial strikes in recent weeks, exposing the country’s growing need for additional air defenses.
“We’re going to see if we can make some available, they’re very hard to get,” Trump said at a news conference in the Hague when asked about U.S.-made Patriot batteries. “They do want that more than any other thing.”
Zelenskyy went into the meeting looking to persuade the U.S. leader to sell weapons to Ukraine. “We covered all the truly important issues,” the president posted to X. “We discussed how to achieve a ceasefire and a real peace. We spoke about how to protect our people.” He didn’t elaborate, saying that “details will follow.”
Trump and Zelenskyy last met at the Vatican in April, where they huddled for about 15 minutes just before the funeral of Pope Francis. Plans for the pair to meet on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Canada earlier this month were scrapped when Trump left the event early.
Trump was pushing talks between Ukraine and Russia since March when delegations met in Saudi Arabia. So far, diplomacy has yielded few results. Russian President Vladimir Putin has defied U.S. and European calls to accept a ceasefire and join negotiations in earnest.
Asked on Wednesday about his efforts to deliver the truce, Trump said he will be speaking with Putin, adding that the Russian leader has to end the war, currently into its fourth year.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters that the mood of “pretty well all participants” at the summit was that “we need to now push harder on Ukraine” and that it was time for Putin “to come to the table.”
The Ukrainian president said he appreciated Trump’s “attention and the readiness to help bring peace closer.”
U.S. funding for military aid to Ukraine that was approved under former President Joe Biden is due to run out in the summer. Trump has indicated he won’t renew the funding support for Ukraine, which needs weapons such as Patriot air-defense systems that only the U.S. can supply.
Zelenskyy is seeking to persuade the U.S. president to allow Kyiv to buy weapons instead. He’s also appealed to Trump to ramp up sanctions on Russia, arguing that it’s the only way to persuade Putin to engage seriously with peace talks.
Trump has been unwilling to increase pressure on Putin, despite the Kremlin leader’s refusal to make concessions.
He criticized Putin for “shooting missiles into civilian areas” in Ukraine after the April meeting with Zelenskyy. Since then, Russia has intensified missile and drone attacks on Ukraine, with 21 people killed and more than 300 wounded in strikes on Tuesday.
Delegations from Ukraine and Russia have held two rounds of talks in Istanbul, after Putin proposed resuming direct negotiations that broke down soon after he ordered the February 2022 invasion.
The two sides agreed to prisoner exchanges and memorandums of proposals for ending the war. But Russia has continued to present hardline demands, including a Ukrainian surrender of four regions that Moscow’s forces only partly occupy, something Kyiv has rejected.
After their very public clash at a White House meeting in February, Trump and Zelenskiy appeared to have mended relations at the Vatican. Ukraine also agreed to a deal in May with the US on the development of the country’s natural resources. While Trump had appeared unenthusiastic about the meeting, his tone shifted after they spoke.
“You know, we had rough times,” the US president said on Wednesday. “He couldn’t have been nicer.”