WASHINGTON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated his pleas for President Trump to send him long-range firepower such as Tomahawk missiles and vowed that he would only deploy them against military targets in Russia.
Zelensky, who spoke with Trump earlier in the day on Sunday, said the recent breakthrough peace agreement between Israel and Hamas has given his country “hope” that ending Russia’s war on Ukraine is possible.
“He said really that [the] Ukraine [war] is more difficult [to end], that it’s a bigger war,” Zelensky recounted on “The Sunday Briefing.” on Fox News.
“[Russian tyrant Vladimir] Putin really doesn’t want [to end the war] and he doesn’t feel full pressure on him,” he said.
“We need two things, I think, to make real pressure on Putin,” he went on. “I said to him that we need real air defense. And the second point is to have long weapons, long-distance capabilities.”
Zelensky has been asking Trump for weeks to green-light the sale of Tomahawk missiles, which can precisely hit targets over 1,500 miles away.
That type of firepower will enable Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory, but selling those weapons to Kyiv risks escalating tensions with Moscow.
“It’s only military goals,” the Ukrainian leader later stressed. “Even with all this pain of losses, losses of our families and our soldiers and our civilians and children … we never attack their civilians. This is the big difference between Ukraine and Russia.”
Kremlin officials have voiced “extreme concern” about the prospect of the US selling Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, and Russian lawmakers have warned about retaliation against America in response.
Enabling Ukraine to strike deep into Russia will help Kyiv take out key military assets the Kremlin has been using in its war machine.
It will also likely force Russia to pull some of its air defense systems out of Ukraine and into its territory, which could make Ukrainian strikes far more effective.
Trump has kept an open mind about the Tomahawk missiles, but has expressed some reservations.
“I think I want to find out what they’re doing with them,” he told reporters last week. “Where are they sending them? I guess I’d have to ask that question.”
“I would ask some questions. I’m not looking to escalate that war.”
Last month, Trump dramatically changed his tune on the war in Ukraine, suggesting that Russia might be a “paper tiger” and musing that Ukraine could get back all its territory and go “even further.”
Zelensky stressed the difficult nature of the war, as Ukraine has been forced to deal with Iranian drones and North Korean artillery backing up the war machine.
“We are a strong country, but not so big to be against Russia and Iranians and North Koreans. It’s too much,” he gasped.
The Ukrainian leader wouldn’t confirm whether Trump agreed to provide Ukraine with intelligence on how to hit energy targets inside Russia, but indicated he was satisfied.
“I am comfortable [with] how our two intelligence … institutions work. They have very strong relations,” he said.
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