POLITICO: Ukraine ignored the counsel of its Republican friends in Washington

Trump meets Zelenskyy in the White House.
Photo: ‘The Washington Post’

Last week, Ukrainian Zelenskyy had hoped to capitalize on his warming relations with U.S. President Donald Trump to secure a supply of U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles — weapons Kyiv believes could be a game-changer and deliver a decisive blow to the Kremlin’s war economy, POLITICO notes.

Fresh off successfully brokering a ceasefire in Gaza, surely Trump would have the appetite to give Ukraine what it needs to force Russian President Vladimir Putin into getting serious about negotiations.

But that isn’t what happened.

Zelenskyy’s meeting in the White House was perfectly cordial — Trump used that word himself to characterize their encounter. There was no frostiness, and no return to the nastiness of last February’s now infamous Oval Office brawl. Zelenskyy learned his lesson thoroughly on that score and now knows deference is obligatory when approaching “daddy” Trump.

“It wasn’t a bad meeting, just a victim of poor timing and inflated expectations,” said one Republican foreign-policy insider who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. But it could have been much more productive if Zelenskyy had readjusted his thinking and rejigged his agenda after the lengthy phone call Trump had with Putin the day before.

During that two-and-a-half hour call, Trump teased Putin with the prospects of supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks: “I did actually say, would you mind if I gave a couple of thousand Tomahawks to your opposition? I did say that,” the U.S. president told reporters. “He didn’t like the idea.” And the outcome was an agreement to meet at another summit — this time in Budapest — with Trump once again seemingly persuaded that Putin might be ready to end the war.

But Ukraine ignored the counsel of its Republican friends in Washington — many of whom are skeptical Trump will agree to give Ukraine Tomahawks under any circumstances, for fear of escalation and drawing the U.S. deeper into the war. That’s not even considering the Pentagon’s worries about the U.S.’s own stockpiles, which Trump himself mentioned to reporters on Friday.

The focus on Tomahawks also distracted from other key asks. In fact, the huge delegation of Ukrainian ministers and officials — including Zelenskyy’s powerful Chief-of-Staff Andriy Yermak and Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko — sent to Washington ahead of Friday’s White House meeting struck out across the board, failing to finalize several major agreements involving both the U.S. government and the private sector.

“The idea was that there would be massive things readied, including some agreements with major U.S. defense companies and energy players, all to be inked during the White House meeting,” said the Republican insider. But in the end, nothing was oven-ready.

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