Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held closed-door talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday, July 28, pressing for American military support and a reinvigoration of stalled peace efforts with Russia. The visit, which lasted just over an hour in the Oval Office, ended without any formal announcement on military aid, but both sides described the discussions as productive and practical.
At the heart of the meeting was Ukraine's urgent need for Patriot air defence systems. As Russia has intensified its use of ballistic missiles — last month was the deadliest for Ukrainian civilians since April 2022, according to the United Nations — Kyiv has run chronically short of the interceptors, which remain the only weapon in its arsenal capable of downing such missiles. Zelenskyy said Trump had "accepted that he will give us licences" to produce Patriot interceptors domestically, following a promise Trump made at a NATO summit earlier this month. Separately, Zelenskyy met with officials from Lockheed Martin, the American defence company that manufactures the Patriot system, saying teams were already working on solutions "to move to co-production as quickly as possible."
Beyond weapons, the two leaders discussed reviving the diplomatic process. Ukrainian officials described the talks as focused on restarting negotiations, including a planned first visit to Ukraine by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — Trump's son-in-law — who have met Russian President Vladimir Putin multiple times since Trump returned to office in January 2025 but have not yet travelled to Kyiv. No firm date has been set. "We also talked about diplomacy — it is important to step up the diplomatic process," Zelenskyy told reporters after a subsequent meeting with US senators on Capitol Hill.
The visit was shaped in part by the death of Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who died suddenly of a heart ailment on July 11 at the age of 71. Graham had been one of Ukraine's most vocal advocates in Washington and met Zelenskyy in Kyiv just one day before his death — his tenth visit to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. Zelenskyy attended Graham's memorial service at Washington National Cathedral, where Trump also delivered a eulogy. While in Washington, Zelenskyy also watched the Senate vote on a bipartisan sanctions package targeting buyers of Russian oil and gas — a measure Graham had long championed and for which Trump had signalled support in the senator's final days.
The Zelenskyy-Trump relationship has warmed considerably after a turbulent start to Trump's second term, when the two clashed publicly over the terms of any potential settlement. Ukraine's recent battlefield gains — including deep strikes into Russia and operations targeting supply lines to Russian-occupied Crimea — appear to have shifted the dynamic. Still, a Pentagon letter to Congress revealed that the Trump administration does not plan to finish spending $400 million in previously authorised Ukraine aid until fiscal year 2029, drawing criticism from both Democratic and some Republican lawmakers. "With this vote, we are going to show Putin he can't bully Ukraine," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters. For Kyiv, Tuesday's visit was an opportunity to consolidate momentum at a moment when American support remains essential but uncertain.