On October 17, 2025, US President Donald Trump hosted Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. After the public portion of the meeting, Trump described the conversation as “very interesting and warm,” although US media, citing anonymous sources, portrayed it as tense and difficult.
The main issue before the talks was the possible delivery of long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. But it became clear in advance that the decision had been postponed until a new round of bilateral contacts between Washington and Moscow was completed. The balance shifted after Trump’s phone call with Vladimir Putin on the evening of October 16, which lasted more than two hours.
According to Trump, the conversation with Putin was productive and showed “excellent progress.” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov called it frank and substantive. The main result was an agreement to intensify Russian-American contacts: first, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are expected to speak by phone, then meet in person, and within the next two weeks, Trump said, a new summit with Putin could take place in Budapest.
During the public part of the meeting with Zelensky, the US president called him “a very strong leader who has gone through many trials.” Zelensky, for his part, said the two sides had begun to understand each other better and noted Trump’s awareness of the battlefield situation. At the same time, their views on the causes of the war differed.
“We want peace, and Putin does not. That is why we need to put pressure on him,” Zelensky said.
Trump, however, said both Putin and Zelensky wanted to end the war and avoided giving a direct answer on whether Ukraine might have to make territorial concessions. After the meeting, he again called on the sides to stop the fighting. Zelensky also said he discussed additional air defense supplies with Trump and US defense companies and proposed expanding joint production by combining American missiles with Ukrainian drones.