Ukraine’s Zelensky expected at White House to secure Trump’s support
KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected at the White House on Tuesday for talks with Donald Trump, to try again to win the US president’s support against Russia.
The visit — scheduled for 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) — comes as Kyiv and Moscow both ramp up long-range strikes and diplomatic efforts launched by Washington remain at a standstill, more than four years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion.
More than 390 Ukrainian drones targeted the Moscow region overnight, the Russian capital’s mayor said on Tuesday morning. Local authorities reported some damage to residential buildings.
Relations between Zelensky and Trump have long been strained but the US leader has in recent weeks shown greater indulgence to his Ukrainian counterpart.
A White House official told AFP last Friday that the two men would meet in Washington on Tuesday, on the same day as a planned tribute for senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Ukraine supporter, who died this month aged 71.
“We are preparing for a meeting with the president of the United States and his team,” Zelensky said, adding that he hoped that Washington “will continue to support Ukraine and that we can end this war with a dignified peace.”
Since his return to power in January last year, Trump has largely ended direct deliveries of US arms to Kyiv in favor of the PURL program, which allows Europeans to buy weapons and then supply them to Ukraine.
Washington, though, remains a major ally of Kyiv, providing it notably with intelligence and access to the Starlink satellite system that allows its frontline troops to communicate.
