{"id":168362,"date":"2025-10-17T08:06:45","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T08:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-latest-zelensky-lands-in-us-after-putin-warns-trump-not-to-give-tomahawks-the-independent\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T08:06:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T08:06:45","slug":"ukraine-latest-zelensky-lands-in-us-after-putin-warns-trump-not-to-give-tomahawks-the-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-latest-zelensky-lands-in-us-after-putin-warns-trump-not-to-give-tomahawks-the-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine latest: Zelensky lands in US after Putin warns Trump not to give Tomahawks – The Independent"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ukrainian and US presidents will hold talks in Oval Office after Trump said he would meet Putin in Hungary
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Donald Trump is hosting Volodymyr Zelensky <\/a>in Washington<\/a> to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine today, a day after the US<\/a> president announced a new summit with Vladimir Putin<\/a> in Budapest.
The US president will begin a flurry of diplomatic activity on Friday aimed at ending Russia<\/a>\u2019s invasion, a week after he helped strike a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In a post on X, Zelensky said he would meet with representatives of defence and energy companies ahead of his meeting with Trump<\/a> in the Oval Office.
\u201cWe expect that the momentum of curbing terror and war that succeeded in the Middle East will help to end Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine<\/a>,\u201d the Ukrainian president said.
The US president held a two-hour phone call with Putin on Thursday, during which the Russian president congratulated him on the \u201cGreat Accomplishment of Peace in the Middle East\u201d.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> would meet with Russian officials next week, followed by a summit between himself and Putin in Budapest on an unspecified date.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban said he will talk to Russian president Vladimir Putin today.
Earlier, he said Budapest had begun preparations to host a summit between Putin and US president Donald Trump after the two leaders agreed to meet in Hungary.
Orban said the meeting \u201cwill be about peace\u201d and if there is a peace deal, that would lead to a new phase of economic development in Hungary and Europe.
Trump said he made \u201cgreat progress\u201d in his own phone call with Putin on Thursday, describing the conversation as \u201cvery productive\u201d.
The European Union has unveiled a strategy to bolster its defences, to be fully operational by the decade’s end, amidst concerns over Russian incursions.
A key component is the \u201cEuropean Drone Defense Initiative,\u201d to detect, track, and neutralise rogue drones, following troubling airspace violations across Europe, some near Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian borders.
Complementing this is \u201cEastern Flank Watch,\u201d a scheme to fortify its eastern frontier across land, Baltic and Black seas, air, and against hybrid attacks.
Initial operation for both is December next year, the drone system fully functional by late 2027 and Eastern Flank Watch in full swing by the end of 2028.
Separate air and space shields are also envisioned.
Read more here:
US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Budapest, with the location reportedly suggested by Trump and immediately agreed to by Putin, according to the Kremlin.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban welcomed the news enthusiastically. He called Hungary an \u201cisland of peace\u201d and confirmed that preparations for the summit were underway after speaking directly with Trump.
Budapest is not new to hosting high-level US\u2013Russia talks. It was among the shortlisted locations for the last Trump\u2013Putin summit in Alaska, and it carries significant historical weight in the context of Ukraine.
In 1994, Ukraine handed over the world\u2019s third-largest nuclear arsenal under the Budapest Memorandum, receiving security guarantees from Russia, the US, and the UK in return.
Those guarantees were intended to protect Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty \u2013 promises that were broken first with Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and later with the full-scale invasion in 2022.
The US president has shown he loves to back a winner \u2013 especially one that uses US weapons \u2013 which means Zelensky must convince him that he\u2019s the one to back with Tomahawk missiles, writes Sam Kiley in Dnipro:
Hungary\u2019s prime minister Viktor Orban has expressed strong support for the planned summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
\u201cThe planned meeting between the American and Russian presidents is great news for the peace-loving people of the world. We are ready!\u201d he said.
The Hungarian leader added that he had spoken by phone with Trump and that preparations for a US\u2013Russia summit were already underway.
Earlier, Trump announced he would be taking part in a new meeting with Putin in Hungary, with the timing yet to be agreed.
He is meeting the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington DC later today.
Hundreds of people gathered in the centre of St Petersburg<\/a> in a rare moment of protest<\/a> against Russian president Vladimir Putin to sing anti-war songs.
A crowd of young people gathered to sing anti-war songs in Kazanskaya Square, including the proscribed song<\/a> \u201cSwan Lake<\/a> Collective\u201d by Russian rapper Noize MC, in footage that has now gone viral on social media.
The song, banned from distribution by the Primorsky District Court in May, features anti-Putin lyrics including \u201cThe old man still clings to his throne, afraid to let go\u201d and \u201cWhen the tsar dies, we\u2019ll dance again \u2014 \u2018Swan Lake\u2019 on every screen.\u201d
Crowds could be heard chanting the chorus: \u201cI want to watch the ballet<\/a>, let the swans dance. Let the old man shake in fear for his lake\u201d.
Read more here:
Donald Trump<\/a> has agreed to a second Ukraine<\/a> war summit with Vladimir Putin<\/a> after a \u201cproductive\u201d phone call between the pair on the eve of a White House visit by Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a>.
A date has not been set, but Mr Trump wrote on social media that the meeting would take place in Budapest.
\u201cI believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,\u201d the US president wrote after the conversation, which lasted more than two hours.
Their previous summit, in Alaska in August, ended without any significant diplomatic breakthroughs for Mr Trump. Yuri Ushakov, Putin\u2019s foreign affairs adviser, said the Russian president initiated the call, which he described as \u201cvery frank and trusting\u201d.
It came as Mr Zelensky was heading to the White House to push for more military support, including long-range Tomahawk missiles<\/a> that would allow Ukraine to strike deeper into Russian territory.
Read more here:
Russian president Vladimir Putin\u2019s latest phone call with Donald Trump may have slowed growing US momentum to toughen its stance on Moscow, according to a former US State Department official.
\u201cPutin is trying to derail the momentum toward greater pressure on Russia,\u201d said Dan Fried, a former US State Department official and veteran diplomat who oversaw sanctions policy under multiple administrations.
\u201cWe\u2019ll see what happens tomorrow [on Friday, with Zelensky due to meet Trump] but the chances of moving toward a ceasefire by pushing Russia to get serious seem to have diminished.\u201d
The Kremlin described Thursday\u2019s Trump and Putin call as \u201cextremely frank and trustful\u201d.
Earlier, Trump had appeared to harden his position, voicing frustration with Russia\u2019s continued attacks and hinting at a possible decision to provide Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.
Explosions were reported overnight in both occupied Donetsk and the Russian resort city of Sochi, as suspected Ukrainian drone attacks targeted sites deep inside Russian-held territory.
\u201cAn air defence system is active in Sochi. An attack by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is being repelled,\u201d Sochi Mayor Andrei Proshunin said.
In Donetsk, local channels reported that a Russian ammunition depot had been struck, setting off a series of explosions and large fires visible across the occupied city.
Videos circulating on social media appeared to show multiple blasts lighting up the night sky, Kyiv Independent <\/em>reported.
Ukrainian officials have not commented on either incident.
Donald Trump appeared uncertain on Wednesday about supplying Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, saying the US must also keep enough for its own defence \u2013 just hours before his scheduled meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington.
\u201cWe need Tomahawks for the United States of America too. We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean, we can\u2019t deplete for our country,\u201d Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
\u201cI don\u2019t know what we can do about that,\u201d he added.
Zelensky, who arrived in Washington earlier in the day, is expected to make a fresh push for the long-range missiles, which can strike targets up to 2,500 kilometres away.
Earlier, Putin\u2019s aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Moscow had warned Trump against arming Kyiv with the missiles.
\u201cVladimir Putin reiterated his point that Tomahawks would not change the situation on the battlefield but would cause significant harm to relations between our countries, not to mention the prospects for peaceful settlement,\u201d Ushakov said, according to the Kyiv Independent<\/em>.
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