Talks scheduled on Friday between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US leader Donald Trump will focus on the possible delivery of American long-range Tomahawk missiles for Kyiv, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP.<\/p>\n
“The main topic of discussion is Tomahawks. Of course, there is also the issue of Patriots,” the source said, referring to US air defence batteries.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian leader plans to arrive in Washington on Thursday ahead of the talks, the source added.<\/p>\n
Relations between the two leaders have warmed since February, when they sparred during a now infamous televised meeting at the White House.<\/p>\n
Trump has since grown more hostile towards Moscow, showing mounting frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin, while expressing sympathy for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The senior Ukrainian source told AFP that the tone of rhetoric between the White House and Kyiv was now “very businesslike.”<\/p>\n
“It seems that the Americans in general understand that helping Ukraine gives them points, and that, like pressure on Russia, will work to end it all,” the source told AFP.<\/p>\n
Senior Ukrainian officials visiting the Washington this week met with representatives of US weapon manufacturers, including Raytheon, which produces Tomahawk missiles.<\/p>\n
Zelensky will also meet with arms makers to discuss when deliveries could begin, the source said.<\/p>\n
“But they need a political signal,” it added.<\/p>\n
Tomahawk cruise missiles have previously primarily been fired from sea-based launchers, like warships or submarines, but the source told AFP that: “There is a technical solution in place for the launch platform.”<\/p>\n
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022, has warned that sending the missiles to Ukraine would rupture its ties with Washington and trigger a new round of escalation.<\/p>\n
The source declined to disclose how many of the long-range missiles Trump is considering sending to Ukraine, saying only the arsenal would be “enough for Putin to feel it.”<\/p>\n
ant-jbr\/jc\/st<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Talks scheduled on Friday between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US leader Donald Trump will focus on the possible delivery of American long-range Tomahawk missiles for Kyiv, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP. “The main topic of discussion is Tomahawks. Of course, there is also the issue of Patriots,” the source said, referring to US […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[95,276,277,144],"class_list":["post-14488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional","tag-conflict","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-us-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14491,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14488\/revisions\/14491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}