By Max Hunder and Andrea Shalal
KYIV/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy painted his meeting last week with Donald Trump as a success that yielded progress on acquiring new air defence systems, a contrast from reports that Trump had berated him with obscenities in the White House.
In comments made to media on Sunday initially off-the-record but authorised for publication on Monday, the Ukrainian leader described Trump’s message at the meeting, which ended with Trump calling for a ceasefire with forces in place, as “positive”.
As a result of Zelenskiy’s visit to Washington, Ukraine was now preparing a contract to buy 25 Patriot air defence systems, a major boost to its defences against Russian missile attacks, Zelenskiy said.
Zelenskiy was speaking before Reuters and other news organisations reported that Trump had pushed Zelenskiy to give up territory during their meeting, which sources described as more tense than initially disclosed.
TRUMP’S ‘MESSAGE IN MY VIEW IS POSITIVE’, ZELENSKIY SAYS
“After many rounds of discussion over more than two hours with (Trump) and his team, his message, in my view, is positive: that we stand where we stand on the front line,” Zelenskiy said.
Ukraine and its allies have long called for an immediate ceasefire with troops in place, while Moscow has demanded Ukraine cede further territory before it would halt fighting.
Zelenskiy did not specify how close Ukraine had come to signing the contract for the 25 Patriots, but he said that a great deal of time on his trip had been spent discussing the issue, including directly with Trump.
While Zelenskiy failed to reach his stated aim of persuading Washington to provide Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles for long-range attacks inside Russia, the Ukrainian president said he believed this was because Trump did not want to take steps that would anger Russian President Vladimir Putin shortly before a plan to meet the Russian president at a summit.
Trump on Monday said the issue of providing weapons to Ukraine sounded easy, but was “a little more complicated.”
He said the U.S. was continuing to press for a deal between Ukraine and Russia to end a war that Trump had promised to resolve immediately after taking office 10 months ago.
“I think we’ll get there, but it’s turned to be nasty because you have two leaders who truly hate each other,” he told reporters at the start of a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Asked about his shifting view on whether Ukraine could win the war, Trump said: “I don’t think they will, but they could still win it. I never said they would win it. I said they could win it. Anything could happen. You know war is a very strange thing.”
Trump last month had said Ukraine could win back all of the territory Russian had taken since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, reversing his earlier position only to shift gears again last week after speaking with Putin.
Trump on Monday said he had also discussed Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians with Putin during their phone call. Asked if he told him to halt the attacks, Trump said, “I did.”
MEETING DESCRIBED AS TENSE, ‘PRETTY BAD’
Zelenskiy has spent half a year rebuilding his relationship with Trump since a disastrous meeting in February, in which Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated the Ukrainian leader in front of cameras in the White House Oval Office.
Zelenskiy returned to the White House on Friday to meet Trump, a day after Trump spoke by telephone to Putin.
Three sources described Trump’s meeting with Zelenskiy as tense, with Trump repeatedly using profanity.
“It was pretty bad,” one of the sources said of the meeting. “The message was, ‘Your country will freeze, and your country will be destroyed'” if Ukraine doesn’t make a deal with Russia.
It was the latest apparent shift in positions for Trump, who had said for months that Ukraine must give up territory to make peace, only to describe Russia last month as a “paper tiger” and say Ukraine could potentially win back all its land.
Trump and Putin are planning to meet in Budapest, capital of Hungary, a NATO and EU member that has maintained warm relations with Moscow throughout the Ukraine war.
Zelenskiy criticised the choice of venue, suggesting that Hungary’s domestic politics had played a role in the choice: “We are talking about peace in Ukraine, not elections in Hungary.” However, he said that he would be willing to attend talks there if he were invited.
(Reporting by Max Hunder in Kyiv and Andrea Shalal in Washington; Editing by Peter Graff and Nick Zieminski)
