Adnkronos Washington, Oct. 17 (Adnkronos) – US President Donald Trump appeared reluctant to supply Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine after speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a few hours before meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington. "The United States of America also needs Tomahawks. We have a lot of them, but we need them.
“I mean, we can’t run out of them,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I don’t know what we can do about it.”
Zelensky, who arrived in Washington this morning, is expected to pressure Trump to transfer the long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine during their meeting scheduled for today. The US president has already raised the possibility of supplying Kiev with cruise missiles capable of hitting targets up to 2.500 kilometers away. Trump's hesitation about potential deliveries follows yesterday's two-and-a-half-hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which both leaders discussed, among other issues, the transfer of the Tomahawk missiles.
At a press conference following the call, Putin's foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said the Russian president directly raised the issue of supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine. "Vladimir Putin reiterated that the Tomahawks will not change the situation on the battlefield, but will cause significant damage to relations between our countries, not to mention the prospects for a peaceful solution," Ushakov said, reiterating Putin's opposition to the potential transfer.