President Volodymyr Zelensky hopes the momentum of the Middle East peace deal will help end the war in Ukraine, he said Thursday after arriving in the US for arms talks.
“Tomorrow, a meeting with President (Donald) Trump is scheduled – and we expect that the momentum of curbing terror and war that succeeded in the Middle East will help to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Zelensky said on X.
The “language of strength and justice will inevitably work against Russia,” he added.
At the meeting with Trump, Zelensky will discuss potential supplies of US long-range Tomahawk missiles, capable of reaching Moscow from Ukraine.
“We can already see that Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks,” Zelensky said, adding that he’ll also be meeting US defence companies to discuss additional supplies of air defence systems.
The Ukrainian leader arrived hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin told Trump in a surprise call that supplying the Tomahawks would endanger peace efforts, and the two leaders agreed to hold another summit, potentially in Budapest.
Diplomatic efforts in settling the nearly four-year war have been waning over the past two months, after a Putin-Trump summit in Alaska on Aug 15 failed to produce any substantial results.
Meanwhile, Russian strikes forced Ukraine to introduce nationwide rolling power cuts, for the second day in a row, in the cold season when temperatures can fall to zero at night.
Moscow had intensified bombardments of Ukrainian energy and railway infrastructure as the ground offensive appeared to have stalled.
