Published :
Updated :
For all latest news, follow The Financial Express Google News channel.
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he will probably meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a NATO summit this week, opening a door for Kyiv to press its case for buying US Patriot missile systems and tougher sanctions to fight Russia.
Trump made the comments to reporters on board Air Force One on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, a White House official said Trump was scheduled to meet Zelensky at some point during the NATO summit, taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday in The Hague.
Trump pulled out from a hoped-for meeting with Zelensky last week, when the US president left the G7 meeting in Canada early, saying he needed to focus on the crisis in the Middle East.
In comments released by his office on Saturday, Zelensky outlined his three priorities if a meeting with Trump were to take place at the NATO summit.
Firstly, he said he wanted to discuss weapons, saying that during the G7 summit, his aides had given US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent a wish-list of arms, including Patriot missile defence systems, which he described as worth “a very large amount”.
Zelensky said Ukraine was “ready to find the money for this whole package” rather than requesting it as military aid.
Secondly, he wanted to talk about sanctions on Russia, and thirdly about other diplomatic ways of applying greater pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.