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Zelenskyy to meet Trump on Friday to discuss arms and energy

Andrea Palasciano and Kateryna Chursina, Bloomberg News on

Published in News & Features

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington this week to discuss air defense, long-range weaponry and energy as Russia intensifies strikes on the war-battered nation’s energy system.

The Ukrainian leader said the meeting Friday follows up on two detailed phone conversations with Trump over the past week, in which Zelenskyy discussed the Kremlin’s latest attacks on energy and civilian infrastructure, as well as “some sensitive issues,” he told reporters.

“We need to discuss the sequence of steps that I want to propose to the president,” Zelenskyy said at a briefing alongside the European Union’s top foreign policy official, Kaja Kallas in Kyiv Monday. The White House hasn’t confirmed the meeting.

Ukraine has reinforced a push to secure air-defense systems to protect energy assets after a series of strikes triggered power outages over swathes of the country. As the winter months approach, Russia has intensified its attacks as part of a deliberate strategy to cripple Ukraine’s energy system and demoralize its population after a summer offensive failed to gain traction.

Kyiv has also ratcheted up attacks on Russia’s energy supplies as part of an effort to force Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table. Zelenskyy said he raised the issue of securing long-range Tomahawk missiles, one of the most advanced weapons in the U.S. arsenal, an option that the Trump administration has floated as a possibility.

“It is too early to talk about amounts and possibilities,” Zelenskyy said in response to a query on Tomahawks. He laid out options for financing such a delivery, including from Ukrainian NATO allies, mineral resources or frozen Russian assets.

Energy talks

While assaults on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have become commonplace after more than three years of war, Russian war planners have determined that they have a freer hand to ravage gas infrastructure after Kyiv shut down transit pipelines to Europe, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.

The U.S. visit will include meetings with U.S. Congress members and military officials. Zelenskyy said he’ll also plan to meet energy company executives, at Trump’s urging, as Ukraine looks for ways to defend itself from the “new format” of Russian attacks.

 

A Ukrainian delegation, including Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko and Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, has already left for the U.S.

During Kallas’s visit to Kyiv, Zelenskyy also said Ukraine will aim to discuss importing natural gas from the EU, Norway and others in the Middle East.

“We have our estimation what we will need, but mostly its about money,” Zelenskyy said. “But we will manage it.”

The Ukrainian leader said there was “definitely progress” on the issue of tapping frozen Russian central bank assets, as Kallas said talks on the issue are progressing. The EU is increasingly convinced that tapping around €200 billion ($232 billion) in the assets is the only viable way to put funding for Ukraine on a sustainable footing, since other sources of financing have run dry.

The EU will aim to reach a political agreement to use the assets at a summit meeting of leaders in Brussels next week, according to people familiar with the matter. Once that’s secured, the bloc’s executive would rapidly start work on a legal proposal for a mechanism to release money by the second quarter of next year, the people said.

Kallas said the EU is also deliberating ways to come to Kyiv’s aid in repairing and protecting infrastructure.

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