Trump: Putin May Be Stalling End of Ukraine War

Trump repeatedly said that he hopes the war in Ukraine will end before there’s a need for the US to send Tomahawks missiles to Ukraine. Trump said the US needs the high-powered weapons, too. The missiles were on Zelenskiy’s wish-list going into the meeting. The Ukrainian leader told reporters that he will speak to Trump in their meeting on what is needed to “push” Putin to the negotiation table. Trump doesn’t expect Zelenskiy to appear with Putin at the upcoming Budapest meeting: “These two leaders do not like each other, and we want to make it comfortable for everybody. So, one way or the other will be involved in threes, but it may be separated,” Trump said.

President Donald Trump acknowledged that President Vladimir Putin may be stalling for time by agreeing to another summit, as Ukraine’s leader pushed for more US weapons in Washington in a bid to force an end to Russia’s invasion.

Trump on Friday shrugged off concerns Putin may be manipulating him, telling reporters he still thinks the Russian leader wants to end the conflict. Sitting across from Trump during a White House meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believes Putin doesn’t want peace, and asked for a US security guarantee — one Trump has so far refused to give.

Asked if he was worried Putin may be trying to buy time, Trump said, “Yeah, I am.”

“But, you know, I’ve been played all my life by the best of them and I came out really well,” Trump continued. “I think that I’m pretty good at this stuff. I think he wants to make a deal.”

Zelenskiy was in Washington a day after Trump agreed in a phone call with Putin to meet in Hungary in the coming weeks. The possibility of a fresh summit spurred concern of a possible repeat of Trump’s August meeting with Putin in Alaska. That event made little headway toward ending the war.

The dissonance between Trump and Zelenskiy underscored just how differently they view the urgency around the conflict. Ukraine is desperate for more assistance as Russia has stepped up its attacks in recent months and knocked out more than half the country’s gas output. That’s put Ukraine in a precarious position as winter approaches.

And while Trump has vented occasional frustration with Putin, he’s been wary of committing the US to deeper involvement. He’s equivocated on a Senate-led push for fresh sanctions against Russia and has so far rebuffed Ukraine’s demand for long-range Tomahawk missiles.

While both leaders were cordial, the meeting Friday exposed a major fault line between them. Of his conversation with Putin about a possible peace deal, Trump said the Russian leader “wants to get it done.” Zelenskiy, meanwhile, said “we want peace — Putin doesn’t want” and made clear he wants advanced weapons and US support to push Russia to the negotiating table.

Like Putin, Zelenskiy sought to get greater backing from Trump by comparing a possible peace bid to the president’s successful push to halt the fighting — at least for now — between Hamas and Israel. Trump gathered world leaders in Egypt last week to celebrate the ceasefire and hostage deal and push for a lasting peace.

“President Trump has really showed for the world that he can manage ceasefire in the Middle East and that’s why I hope that he can do this and we can also have such big success,” Zelenskiy said.

Trump reiterated his fresh unease over one of Zelenskiy’s key asks: access to Tomahawks, which are among the most advanced weapons in the American arsenal and would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory.

“We want Tomahawks also, we don’t want to be giving away things we need to protect our country,” Trump told reporters.

Nine months into Trump’s second presidency, the conflict in Ukraine has become a war of exhaustion, with Russia suffering heavy losses for minimal advances on the battlefield and both sides using long-range strikes in a bid to undermine the morale of their enemies.

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