Symbolic imageTrump and Zelensky discuss Patriot interceptor production in Ukraine
Donald Trump received Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on Tuesday for a closed meeting of a little over an hour on ending the war with Russia. Zelensky said the two discussed licences that would let Ukraine build its own interceptor missiles for Patriot air defence systems, and called for the diplomatic process to be reinvigorated. Trump wrote afterwards only that the meeting "went very well", before receiving Benjamin Netanyahu separately.
What happened
According to Daily Sabah, the meeting took place in the Oval Office, closed to the media, and lasted just over an hour with no press statements planned. Zelensky said afterwards that he and Trump discussed licensing the production of Patriot interceptors in Ukraine "and some other ideas that could help", along with diplomacy, and that both teams would arrange the details of further contacts. Trump posted that the "meeting went very well!" without specifying the content, and used similar wording about his separate meeting with Netanyahu. Zelensky opened by offering condolences over the death of Senator Lindsey Graham, who died on 11 July, and later watched from the Senate gallery as the chamber advanced a Russia and Iran sanctions bill. Reuters reported, citing sources, that Ukrainian and American officials discussed a proposal for an air ceasefire to be presented to Russia.
The view from outside
Le Monde placed the Patriot licence talks in a longer arc, arguing that Ukraine has spent three years turning from a recipient of Western aid into a supplier of military technology to Europe and the Middle East. It cites the Kyiv School of Economics on roughly 800 drone producers and an annual capacity of 10 million units, in a sector worth about one billion dollars before February 2022 whose value has since multiplied more than fiftyfold. German outlets framed the day mainly as a double appointment, with FAZ and Handelsblatt presenting the two wars as converging on one White House schedule.
What could happen next
The licensing arrangement remains at the level of talks between the two delegations, and the sanctions bill has cleared only a procedural hurdle rather than a final vote. Zelensky said in Washington that Putin no longer holds "the initiative", while also warning that Putin is not ready to stop the war and could mobilise hundreds of thousands of Russians after the parliamentary elections in September. A second front to the visit is Iran: Ukraine said on Saturday it had struck a ship carrying Iranian-linked military cargo in the Caspian Sea, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the target was an Iranian commercial vessel and that a sailor was killed, and Tehran summoned a Ukrainian diplomat and warned the attack would not go unanswered. The American Conservative quotes critics who accuse Zelensky of trying to merge the two wars to pull Washington in further.
Ukraine: Kyiv wants licences to build Patriot interceptors itself and a revived diplomatic track, and says Putin has lost the initiative but is not ready to stop the war.
Russia: Moscow has rejected earlier Ukrainian ceasefire offers, and state agency TASS highlighted Trump's remarks that the late Senator Graham "liked war" and wanted the conflict continued to the end.
Also involved