Tomahawks off the table as Zelensky meets with Trump

President Donald Trump took the U.S. supply of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine off the table ahead of a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday.

The missiles were part of a lengthy news cycle regarding the prospects of their handover, which could have enabled Ukraine to escalate its strikes on infrastructure in the Russian interior. In public comments, Trump suggested that the American supply was too limited to risk depleting Washington's own arsenal.

"We need Tomahawks for the U.S. too. We have many but we need them, we can't deplete, they are very vital," he said.

Zelensky's meeting, moreover, comes as Trump plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hungary, a member state of both NATO and the European Union. Hungarian President Viktor Orban enjoys strong relations with both Trump and Putin and has long irritated EU leaders over his willingness to pursue diplomacy out of step with Brussels.

The refusal to supply Ukraine with Tomahawks may come in the hopes of de-escalating the conflict. At present, however, Russia is on the offensive and appears poised to capture the logistics hub cities of Kupyansk and Pokrovsk in the coming weeks.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent at Just the News. Follow him on X.