President Donald Trump is hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for talks at the White House, with the US leader signalling he’s not ready to agree to sell Kyiv a long-range missile system that the Ukrainians say they desperately need.

Zelensky arrived on Friday local time with top aides to discuss the latest developments with Trump over lunch, a day after the US president and Russian leader Vladimir Putin held a lengthy phone call to discuss the conflict.

At the start of the talks, Zelensky congratulated Trump over landing last week’s ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza and said Trump now has “momentum” to stop the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

“President Trump now has a big chance to finish this war,” Zelensky said.

Zelensky and Trump at bilateral meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House. Photo: AAP

In recent days, Trump has shown an openness to selling Ukraine long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, even as Putin warned that such a move would further strain the US-Russian relationship.

But following Thursday’s call with Putin, Trump appeared to downplay the prospects of Ukraine getting the missiles, which have a range of about 1600 kilometres.

“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too,” Trump said.

“We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean we can’t deplete our country.”

Zelensky has been seeking the weapons, which would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deep into Russian territory and target key military sites, energy facilities and critical infrastructure.

Zelensky has argued that the potential for such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations to end the war more seriously.

But Putin warned Trump during the call that supplying Kyiv with the Tomahawks “won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but would cause substantial damage to the relationship between our countries,” according to Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that talk of providing Tomahawks had already served a purpose by pushing Putin into talks.

“The conclusion is that we need to continue with strong steps. Strength can truly create momentum for peace,” Sybiha said on the social platform X late Thursday.

Ukrainian officials have also indicated that Zelensky plans to appeal to Trump’s economic interests by aiming to discuss the possibility of energy deals with the US.

Zelensky is expected to offer to store American liquefied natural gas in Ukraine’s gas storage facilities, which would allow for an American presence in the European energy market.

He previewed the strategy on Thursday in meetings with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and the heads of American energy companies.

He posted on X that it is important to restore Ukraine’s energy infrastructure after Russian attacks and expand “the presence of American businesses in Ukraine”.

It will be the fourth face-to-face meeting for Trump and Zelensky since the Republican returned to office in January, and their second in less than a month.

Trump announced following Thursday’s call with Putin that he would soon meet with the Russian leader in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss ways to end the war.

Fresh off brokering a ceasefire and hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas, Trump has said finding an endgame to the war in Ukraine is now his top foreign policy priority and has expressed new confidence about the prospects of getting it done.

Awkward  Putin venue

When Russia’s Vladimir Putin steps off the plane in European Union and NATO member Hungary for his summit with Donald Trump, it will be uncomfortable viewing for allies of Ukraine that have sought to isolate a leader they say is a war criminal.

The choice of a country that is part of groupings that have spearheaded international efforts to help Ukraine and isolate Russia for the summit raised eyebrows among diplomats and analysts as much as the plan itself.

It was there that, in 1994, the United States, Britain and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum, providing Ukraine with security assurances in exchange for Kyiv giving up its nuclear weapons.

The signatories of that memorandum pledged to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity – a pledge blown apart by Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbour in 2022.

“It is awkward for both the EU and NATO,” said a senior western European official.

“Timing is everything: the Tomahawk threat is growing and all of a sudden Putin wants to meet. But if Trump can pull something off, he should do it.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has maintained warm relations with Moscow, adding to the bete noire or black beast status he had already gained in Brussels after years of conflict over what the EU says is democratic backsliding in Budapest.

Putin is wanted under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court on charges of illegally deporting children from Ukraine, but few observers expect this to be a problem for him in Budapest.

Orban announced in April during a visit by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who has an ICC warrant for his arrest on charges of war crimes in Gaza, that Hungary would withdraw from the court.

The process has not yet been completed, meaning that technically Putin should be arrested if he visits Budapest, although, as a senior diplomat from an EU country told Reuters, “nobody will be surprised if the Hungarians don’t arrest Putin”.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Friday that Hungary will ensure Putin can enter the country for the summit and return home afterwards.

Botond Feledy, a geopolitical analyst at Red Snow Consulting, said the choice of Budapest for the meeting meant Putin could “hit several birds with one stone”.

“On the one hand, he will be holding talks on the Ukraine war in an EU country without EU leaders attending,” he said.

“For Putin, this is a much stronger blow to the stomach for Europe symbolically on several levels compared with this meeting being held in Turkey or elsewhere.”

Feledy also noted that the meeting would exclude Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a second time after the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska and potentially add to bad blood between Budapest and Kyiv.

Ukraine’s relationship with Hungary has grown increasingly tense.

Zelensky said Hungarian drones had crossed into Ukraine last month, prompting Orban to retort that Ukraine was not a sovereign state.

Orban is one of the most high-profile international backers of Trump’s MAGA movement, lauded by MAGA devotees for his uncompromising approach to immigration and LGBTQ+ rights, and his focus on conservative Christian values.

Trump said on Tuesday that Orban was “fantastic” and “a great leader”, despite his failure to heed US calls to stop buying Russian oil.

European officials expect the Hungarian leader to play up his mediator role ahead of elections next year, in which opinion polls show his Fidesz party trailing centre-right rivals Tisza.

“The Hungarian side will definitely try to present its role as an important one, bridging the gap between the two significantly different sides,” said Marcin Przydacz, foreign policy adviser to the Polish president.

—AAP