Zelenskyy urges Trump to get tougher with Putin, says he's ready to meet in Budapest
Source: NBC News
Oct. 19, 2025, 9:00 AM EDT
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged President Donald Trump to get tougher with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, saying he was ready to join their upcoming summit in Budapest and remained optimistic despite leaving the United States without the weapons he was seeking.
The Ukrainian leader told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in an exclusive interview taped Friday that Trump needed to apply even more pressure on Putin than he had applied to Hamas during his recent success in securing a ceasefire in Gaza. “Putin is something similar but more strong than Hamas,” Zelenskyy said. The war is bigger and Russia’s army is the second biggest in the world, he added, “and that’s why more pressure” is needed.
Zelenskyy had hoped that part of that pressure would be the delivery of long-range U.S. Tomahawk missiles that could be used to strike deep into Russia. Trump had publicly floated the possibility of providing Tomahawks to Ukraine, but appeared to limit expectations about an agreement when he met with Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, one day after a phone call with Putin.
Zelenskyy, who spoke to NBC News shortly after that visit, said it was “good that President Trump didn’t say ‘no,’ but for today, didn’t say ‘yes.’”
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/world/ukraine/volodymyr-zelenskyy-meet-the-press-interview-vladimir-putin-hamas-rcna238324
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Assassinated if he goes to Budapest.