President Donald Trump has held separate meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which the White House described as “positive and productive”.
The two leaders were in Washington to attend the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch supporter of Israel and advocate for US aid to Ukraine, who died earlier this month.
Zelensky and Trump discussed Kyiv’s hope that the US would help bolster its air defences, although no formal commitment has so far been announced.
Netanyahu, for his part, arrived at a time when US-Israel ties have been frayed by diverging views on Iran.
Ahead of the visit, Zelensky was expected to press Trump to follow through on a promise he made at this month’s Nato summit to grant Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot interceptor missiles.
Ukraine has long sought American Patriot missiles, which Kyiv says could be used to defend Ukrainian cities from escalating Russian drone and ballistic missile attacks across the country.
But the closed-door meeting ended without any firm announcement over US military assistance to Ukraine.
