The president of the United States, Donald Trumphe declared this Friday during a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodímir Zelenskiin the White House who hopes that the war with Russia can end without having to send the Tomahawk missiles that Ukrainians ask for. According to the Republican, Putin “wants to end the war.”
“Hopefully they don’t need them. We hope we can finish the war without thinking about tomahawks,” Trump declared as he began a working lunch with Zelensky in the cabinet room.
The president assured that the United States needs the Tomahawks and that one of the reasons why he wants to end the war in Ukraine is to stop “providing massive quantities of weapons” to kyiv. “We need the Tomahawks and we need many of the other weapons that we have sent to Ukraine over the last few years,” he noted.
Zelensky, who contradicted Trump and assured that Putin “is not ready” for peace, responded that the war with Russia is also “a technological war“and pointed out that, although Ukraine uses self-made drones, it does not have access to Tomahawks and needs them to continue fighting.
Escalation
Asked by the press whether the United States would authorize long-range airstrikes inside Russian territory, Trump simply said: “That would be an escalation, but we will talk about it.”
Trump had suggested in recent days that he could supply U.S.-made Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine as a strategy to pressure Russia after weeks of frustration over the Kremlin’s refusal to stop the fighting.
Trump received Zelensky the day after speaking by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he agreed to meet soon in Budapest to seek an end to the war, the second summit between the two since the one in Alaska last August.
During the call, Putin warned Trump that supplying U.S.-made Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would be perceived by Russia as a hostile escalation.
