MOSCOW, October 17. /TASS/. During his meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House, Vladimir Zelensky proposed a deal, offering Ukrainian-made drones in exchange for US Tomahawk cruise missiles.
"If you want to target a military goal, you need thousands of drones. It goes together with such missiles. Ukraine has such thousands of our production drones, but we don't have Tomahawks. That's why we need Tomahawks. The United States is a very strong production, and the United States has Tomahawks and other missiles, very strong missiles, but they can have our thousands of drones," Zelensky stated, effectively suggesting a defense exchange to the US leader.
Zelensky arrived in the United States on Thursday and, prior to his meeting with Trump, held talks with representatives of major US defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, the manufacturer of Patriot missile systems. The meeting with Trump began roughly thirty minutes later than scheduled.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin cautioned that operating Tomahawk missiles is impossible without the direct involvement of US military personnel, warning that such a move would mark "a completely new stage of escalation," including in relations between Moscow and Washington. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized that if Tomahawks are supplied to Kiev, Russia will give an appropriate response.