President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York at the United Nations, where the two leaders spoke briefly to the press about the state of the war in Eastern Europe and current progress toward peace with Russia.
President Trump was gracious in his remarks, describing Zelensky as a “brave man” whose country has “put up a hell of a fight.”
“We have great respect for the fight that Ukraine is putting up,” President Trump said. “It’s pretty amazing, actually.”
President Zelensky thanked President Trump for the meeting and also praised First Lady Melania Trump, who met Tuesday with the First Lady of Ukraine to discuss the welfare and well-being of children in Eastern Europe who have been harmed and affected by the ongoing war.
“This is very important,” Zelenksy said.
He also said he would “brief” President Trump and his team about what was “going on in the battlefield.” Trump encouraged Zelensky to provide an update to the press as well.
Zelenksy said that Ukrainian soldiers have “encircled 1,000” Russian soldiers, with the intent of doing an exchange for their own men in return.
“We need more pressure and more sanctions,” Zelensky said.
When asked by the press whether there was any update on his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump said, “I’ll let you know in about a month from now, okay?”
President Trump also said that, as far as developments in the war, the Russian economy “is terrible right now – as you know, it’s crashing…Russia doesn’t look very distinguished having taken three and a half years now [to fight]…it looks like it’s not going to end for a long time.”
Just before he met with Zelensky, President Trump delivered remarks to the UN General Assembly. In those remarks, the president alluded to strong action that the U.S. would be willing to take to further force Russia to agree to end the war against Ukraine.
“China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war by continuing to purchase Russian oil, but inexcusably, even NATO countries have not cut off much Russian energy and Russian energy products,” he said. “…In the event that Russia is not ready to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs…but for those tariffs to be effective, European nations…would have to join us in adopting the exact same measures.”