The president has said the country needs the cruise missiles for its own defense<\/p>\n
The US must have enough Tomahawk cruise missiles in its own arsenal before it can potentially deliver some to Ukraine, President Donald Trump said on Thursday.
\nThe missiles, which have a range of up to 2,500km (1,554 miles), are the latest weapons to be requested by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.\u00a0Trump previously signaled that he was considering approving the request, citing a lack of progress in peace talks with Russia, but has so far declined to give a definitive answer.
\n\u201cWe need Tomahawks for the United States of America too. We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean, we can\u2019t deplete [our own arsenal],\u201d Trump told reporters at the Oval Office, hours after holding a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
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Trump confirmed that he had discussed the issue with Putin and said that the Russian leader \u201cdidn\u2019t like the idea\u201d of Ukraine acquiring Tomahawks. Putin\u2019s close aide Yury Ushakov told reporters after the call that potential shipments would undermine the chance of achieving peace between Russia and Ukraine and would severely damage Russia\u2019s ties with the US.
\nZelensky is expected to again\u00a0push Trump for additional military aid during a meeting at the White House on Friday. Trump earlier reached a deal with NATO that the bloc would pay for American weapons designated for Ukraine.
\nRussia has repeatedly stated that no amount of foreign aid would stop it from achieving its aims, but would make the risk of wider conflict more likely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The president has said the country needs the cruise missiles for its own defense The US must have enough Tomahawk cruise missiles in its own arsenal before it can potentially…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t