Trump to Meet Zelensky at White House on Friday

The meeting will be Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s third with the US president at the White House since Trump returned to office in January.

Tomahawk missiles have been atop Ukraine’s wish list of weapons since the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Although Trump and Zelenskyy clashed badly in the Oval Office in February, relations between the two have improved markedly over the summer, as the US president has grown increasingly frustrated with Putin’s refusal to end the war in Ukraine.

People familiar with Trump’s discussions with Zelenskyy said that his about-face stems from growing frustration with Putin.

Since late summer, Trump’s intelligence agencies have quietly aided Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile strikes on Russian energy facilities deep inside Russia, FT reported on Sunday.

Tomahawks are cruise missiles used primarily by the US Navy to attack deeply on land. Fired from ships or submarines, they have a range of up to 2,500km (1,550 miles).

Mark Cancian, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank, estimated in a recent war game that the US had 4,150 Tomahawks in total.

However, the US would probably be able to supply only a few to Ukraine. This is in light of the fact that, out of the 200 the Pentagon has procured since 2022, it has already fired more than 120, according to defence experts. The defence department has requested funding for only 57 more Tomahawks in its 2026 budget.

Washington would probably also need Tomahawks for any strike on Venezuelan soil.

The Pentagon declined to comment on how many Tomahawks it has.

Trump and Zelenskyy last met at the White House in August, following the US president’s summit with Putin in Alaska.

Zelenskyy at the time promised to buy nearly $100bn of American weapons, financed by Europe, in a bid to receive US guarantees for its postwar security, according to a document seen by the FT.