KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his reportedly tense meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump last week was “positive,” even though he did not secure Tomahawk missiles for the fight against Russia.
In comments to journalists on Sunday and embargoed until Monday morning, Zelenskyy asserted that Trump reneged on the possibility of sending the long-range missiles to Ukraine after speaking by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin hours before Friday's meeting.
Trump on Friday called on Kyiv and Moscow to “stop where they are” and end the war.
“In my opinion, he does not want an escalation with the Russians until he meets with them,” Zelenskyy said.
According to Zelenskyy, Trump said during their meeting that Putin's maximalist demand — that Ukraine cede the entirety of its eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions — was unchanged.
Zelenskyy expressed skepticism about Putin’s proposal to swap some territory it holds in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions if Ukraine surrenders Donetsk and Luhansk, saying the proposal was unclear.
Ukraine's leader said Trump ultimately supported a freeze along the current front line.
“We share President Trump’s positive outlook if it leads to the end of the war,” Zelenskyy said, citing “many rounds of discussion over more than two hours with him and his team.”
Zelenskyy was diplomatic about his meeting with Trump despite reports that he faced pressure to accept Putin’s demands. The meeting followed the disastrous Oval Office spat on Feb. 28 when the Ukrainian president was scolded on live television for not being grateful for continued U.S. support.
Later on Monday, Trump told reporters that Ukraine could still win the war. “I don’t think they will. They could still win it. I never said they would win it,” he said. “Anything can happen, you know war is a very strange thing.”
Zelenskyy said he hopes that Trump's meeting in the coming weeks with Putin in Hungary — which does not support Ukraine — will pave the way for a peace deal. Their first summit of Trump's current term was in Alaska in August.
Zelenskyy said he has not been invited to attend but would consider it if the format for talks were fair to Kyiv.
He also took a stab at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, saying he does not believe that a prime minister “who blocks Ukraine everywhere can do anything positive for Ukrainians or even provide a balanced contribution.”
Zelenskyy said he thinks that all parties have “moved closer” to a possible end to the war.
“That doesn’t mean it will definitely end, but President Trump has achieved a lot in the Middle East, and riding that wave he wants to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” he added.
Ukraine is hoping to purchase 25 Patriot air defense systems from U.S. firms using frozen Russian assets and assistance from partners, but Zelenskyy said procuring all would require time because of long production waits. He said he spoke to Trump about help procuring them more quickly, potentially from European partners.
Zelenskyy said the United States is interested in bilateral gas projects with Ukraine, including the construction of an LNG terminal in the southern port city of Odesa. Other projects of interest include those related to nuclear energy and oil.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Mahdani contributed from Washington.
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Follow the news at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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An earlier version of this story has been corrected to show that the referenced Trump-Zelenskyy meeting in Oval Office was on Feb. 28, not in March.
