Zelenskyy urges Trump to get tougher with Putin, says he’s ready to meet in Budapest

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged President Donald Trump to get tougher with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, saying he was ready to join their upcoming summit in Budapest and remained optimistic despite leaving the United States without the weapons he was seeking.

The Ukrainian leader told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in an exclusive interview taped Friday that Trump needed to apply even more pressure on Putin than he had applied to Hamas during his recent success in securing a ceasefire in Gaza.

“Putin is something similar but more strong than Hamas,” Zelenskyy said. The war is bigger and Russia’s army is the second biggest in the world, he added, “and that’s why more pressure” is needed.

Zelenskyy had hoped that part of that pressure would be the delivery of long-range U.S. Tomahawk missiles that could be used to strike deep into Russia.

Trump had publicly floated the possibility of providing Tomahawks to Ukraine, but appeared to limit expectations about an agreement when he met with Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, one day after a phone call with Putin.

Zelenskyy, who spoke to NBC News shortly after that visit, said it was “good that President Trump didn’t say ‘no,’ but for today, didn’t say ‘yes.’”

Putin has warned that supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would be a “qualitatively new stage of escalation.” Zelenskyy said that Putin is “afraid that United States will deliver us Tomahawks. And I think that he [is] really afraid that we will use” them.

Trump announced after his call with Putin that he would meet with the Russian president in Budapest, Hungary, for a second round of in-person talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy called Putin a “terrorist” during his interview with NBC News, but reiterated his willingness to meet with the Russian president face to face.

“If we really want to have just and lasting peace, we need both sides of this tragedy,” he said. “How can there be some deals without us about us?”

Asked if he would push to go to Budapest, Zelenskyy said he had told Trump: “I’m ready.”

Trump’s last bid to get the two leaders to meet fizzled out after initial optimism, with the Kremlin rebuffing U.S. efforts.

Zelenskyy’s latest visit to the U.S. came as Russia hammered Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with drones and missiles in the past week, leading to blackouts across the country. Ukraine has been carrying out its own campaign targeting Russia’s energy supply in a bid to impose economic pain on the Kremlin.

“We are not losing this war, and Putin is not winning,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Russia was stepping up airstrikes across Ukraine because of its “weak position” on the battlefield.

“That’s why he really escalates airstrikes,” Zelenskyy added, saying Putin wants an “energy disaster this winter by attacking us.”

Trump said in a social media post after meeting with Zelenskyy that Ukraine and Russia “should stop where they are,” and that it was time to “stop the killing, and make a DEAL.”

Russia currently controls nearly 44,600 square miles, or 19%, of Ukraine, including a major chunk of territory in the east and southeast of the country, according to open-source maps of the battlefield.

Asked if he was willing to negotiate or give up some territory in order to end the war, Zelenskyy said: “If we want to stop this war and to go to peace negotiations urgently and in diplomatic way, we need to stay where we stay, not to give something additional to Putin.”

Peace talks have to take place in quiet, he added. “Not under missiles, not under drones.”

Asked whether Trump can end the war, Zelenskyy said: “God bless, yes.”