Zelensky expected to secure Trump’s support
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.
At a previous meeting in Washington in October 2025, Zelensky failed to convince Trump to provide Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles.
And during heated exchanges in the Oval Office in February that year, both raised their voices during an argument in the full glare of television cameras.
Trump accused Zelensky of ingratitude and “gambling with World War Three.”
The US leader has since changed his tone and during their last encounter in Turkiye earlier this month, he offered words of encouragement, saying he had done “an amazing job.”
He also announced his intention to allow Ukraine to produce anti-aircraft Patriot missiles, which are badly needed to face down Russian attacks.
In another sign of easing tensions, US influencers close to the MAGA orbit such as Laura Loomer and Tim Pool have recently voiced their support for Ukraine, after having long opposed aid to Kyiv.
Zelensky met last week with Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about how to “reinvigorate diplomacy” that has stalled since the start of the US-Israeli war in the Middle East in February.
Previous US mediation efforts between Moscow and Kyiv failed due to disagreements about the thorny question of Ukrainian territories claimed by Russia.
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