17 hours ago
Trump says he will likely meet Zelenskiy at NATO summit
US President Donald Trump says he will probably meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a NATO summit this week, opening a door for Ukraine 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 Zelenskiy at some point during the summit of the NATO military alliance, taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday in The Hague.
Trump pulled out from a hoped-for meeting with Zelenskiy 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.
I thank @SecGenNATO Mark Rutte for the meeting and for the invitation to the North Atlantic Alliance Summit. This is a clear signal that Ukraine remains among the priorities on NATO's coordinated steps within the framework of the Summit and discussed our shared… Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) June 24, 2025
In comments released by his office on Saturday, Zelenskiy 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".
Zelenskiy 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.
Zelenskiy urged all NATO countries on Tuesday to support Ukraine's defence industry.
He said it was essential that Ukraine lead in drone technology, which has shaped the battlefield and developed at breathtaking pace in the 40 months the war has lasted so far.
"Please, let's make sure that our defence potential and potential of our partners work for our peace, not for Russia's madness," he said.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the US leadership was committed to the alliance.
He added, however, that this came with an expectation that European countries and Canada spend more on the military.
The former Dutch prime minister underlined the need for transatlantic co-operation in the defence industry to meet the challenge of rearmament.
"Today, NATO's military edge is being aggressively challenged by a rapidly rearming Russia, backed by Chinese technology and armed with Iranian and North Korean weapons," he said.
"Only Europe and North America together can rise up to meet the challenge of rearmament."
The Kremlin accused NATO of being on a path of rampant militarisation and portraying Russia as a "fiend of hell" in order to justify its big increase in defence spending.
Russia denies any plan to attack the military alliance, which boasts 32 members, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was "largely a wasted effort" to assure the grouping of this because it was determined to demonise Russia.
"It is an alliance created for confrontation ... It is not an instrument of peace and stability," he said.
