Iran strikes US base in Jordan; US and Saudi jets hit militia sites in IraqStrong earthquake hits Kumamoto in southwestern Japan, at least 13 deadChip shares slide worldwide after report on Chinese lithography machinesUS and Iran exchange messages as Trump repeats threat to strike Pickaxe MountainWildfires near Bordeaux and Madrid force mass evacuations as a new heatwave arrivesIsraeli strike destroys Gaza City mosque as Katz says Israel holds 60 percent of the StripTrump and Zelensky discuss Patriot interceptor production in UkraineIran rejects Omani plan for joint control of the Strait of HormuzOpenAI nears $500bn data-centre deal with $250bn Nvidia backstopTrump and Netanyahu meet at the White House with Iran at the centreIran's missile force intact after five months, US munitions stocks reported lowBrent falls more than 6% as US-Iran talks advance and Aramco shuts Jizan refineryIran hangs two men over Isfahan police deaths as 1,500 prisoners strikeSudan's army retakes four towns on the road to besieged El ObeidUS Senate votes 86-12 to advance Russia sanctions billHouthis say they struck Saudi tanker NCC Ghazal in the Red SeaIsrael says its forces destroyed 24 villages in south LebanonPentagon opens review of US troop levels in EuropeRights group says Pakistani forces shot dead 30 protesters in KashmirMoonshot AI open-sources the infrastructure behind Kimi K3German court's leniency toward Berlin Pride attacker sparks political debateUS bans imports of Chinese humanoid robots and power invertersUkraine attacks Moscow region with more than 390 drones overnightHamas signals readiness to close phase-two Gaza talks as Oxfam presents rebuild planApple becomes the second company worth $5 trillionSettler violence spreads in the West Bank as 550 Israeli ex-officials write to TrumpRecord rainfall brings floods and typhoons from Afghanistan to TaiwanTurkiye and Iraq sign energy and security agreementsKeiko Fujimori sworn in as Peru's president amid protests in LimaSyria says security deal with Israel is close as it absorbs 9,000 YPG fightersKyiv seeks to defuse row with Tehran over Caspian Sea ship strikeIndia's Cockroach movement threatens new protests after mass student arrestsSudanese civilians describe inescapable drone attacks as refugees in Chad run short of waterMpox outbreak in Madagascar reaches 3,000 casesEscaped OpenAI agent hacks account at second tech firmChina asks public for clues on deadly dam collapseBeijing rejects US Section 301 probe into overcapacityBrazil takes US tariffs to the WTO, Trump refuses to extend USMCAJohnson & Johnson to pay $5.5bn over talc cancer claimsUS accelerates asylum removals as Haitians lose TPSTaiwan drills moving arms production under Chinese attackAnthropic model finds new attacks on weakened encryptionUAE and US to develop military AI applications togetherCompany reports world's largest natural hydrogen find in MoselleCubans endure blackouts six months into US oil blockadeFAA warns seats on hundreds of 737 Max jets may need inspectionRussia's military claims capture of Krasny Kut in Donetsk regionFuel runs short in Ukraine and Moldova after strikes and port blockadeErdogan orders framework law for PKK disarmamentFifa plans to sell up to 20% of World Cup commercial rightsIran strikes US base in Jordan; US and Saudi jets hit militia sites in IraqStrong earthquake hits Kumamoto in southwestern Japan, at least 13 deadChip shares slide worldwide after report on Chinese lithography machinesUS and Iran exchange messages as Trump repeats threat to strike Pickaxe MountainWildfires near Bordeaux and Madrid force mass evacuations as a new heatwave arrivesIsraeli strike destroys Gaza City mosque as Katz says Israel holds 60 percent of the StripTrump and Zelensky discuss Patriot interceptor production in UkraineIran rejects Omani plan for joint control of the Strait of HormuzOpenAI nears $500bn data-centre deal with $250bn Nvidia backstopTrump and Netanyahu meet at the White House with Iran at the centreIran's missile force intact after five months, US munitions stocks reported lowBrent falls more than 6% as US-Iran talks advance and Aramco shuts Jizan refineryIran hangs two men over Isfahan police deaths as 1,500 prisoners strikeSudan's army retakes four towns on the road to besieged El ObeidUS Senate votes 86-12 to advance Russia sanctions billHouthis say they struck Saudi tanker NCC Ghazal in the Red SeaIsrael says its forces destroyed 24 villages in south LebanonPentagon opens review of US troop levels in EuropeRights group says Pakistani forces shot dead 30 protesters in KashmirMoonshot AI open-sources the infrastructure behind Kimi K3German court's leniency toward Berlin Pride attacker sparks political debateUS bans imports of Chinese humanoid robots and power invertersUkraine attacks Moscow region with more than 390 drones overnightHamas signals readiness to close phase-two Gaza talks as Oxfam presents rebuild planApple becomes the second company worth $5 trillionSettler violence spreads in the West Bank as 550 Israeli ex-officials write to TrumpRecord rainfall brings floods and typhoons from Afghanistan to TaiwanTurkiye and Iraq sign energy and security agreementsKeiko Fujimori sworn in as Peru's president amid protests in LimaSyria says security deal with Israel is close as it absorbs 9,000 YPG fightersKyiv seeks to defuse row with Tehran over Caspian Sea ship strikeIndia's Cockroach movement threatens new protests after mass student arrestsSudanese civilians describe inescapable drone attacks as refugees in Chad run short of waterMpox outbreak in Madagascar reaches 3,000 casesEscaped OpenAI agent hacks account at second tech firmChina asks public for clues on deadly dam collapseBeijing rejects US Section 301 probe into overcapacityBrazil takes US tariffs to the WTO, Trump refuses to extend USMCAJohnson & Johnson to pay $5.5bn over talc cancer claimsUS accelerates asylum removals as Haitians lose TPSTaiwan drills moving arms production under Chinese attackAnthropic model finds new attacks on weakened encryptionUAE and US to develop military AI applications togetherCompany reports world's largest natural hydrogen find in MoselleCubans endure blackouts six months into US oil blockadeFAA warns seats on hundreds of 737 Max jets may need inspectionRussia's military claims capture of Krasny Kut in Donetsk regionFuel runs short in Ukraine and Moldova after strikes and port blockadeErdogan orders framework law for PKK disarmamentFifa plans to sell up to 20% of World Cup commercial rights
Bota
Symbolic image

Trump and Zelensky discuss Patriot interceptor production in Ukraine

13 sources

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.

Israel Iran Russia Ukraine United StatesExecutive Office of the President of the United StatesUnited States Senate

Russia-Ukraine strikesTrump-Netanyahu summit

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.

How the camps see it

  • 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

United StatesIran

Worth reading

Sources

The GuardianMeduzaLe Monde

To the edition