War

One thousand three hundred twenty-ninth day. Zelensky will meet with Trump for the third time at the White House. They will discuss the supply of Tomahawks to Ukraine

Since February 24, 2022, Meduza has been broadcasting live about the Russian-Ukrainian war. We publish your letters in our daily materials because we are sure that we need to continue talking about the war. How do you feel about the ongoing war? How is it affecting you personally right now? How has your attitude to what is happening, to Russia, to Ukraine, to the world changed over these three years of war? Find the feedback form at the end of this article. A review of the previous day can be read here .

World

Zelensky will meet with Trump at the White House

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky will meet with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday, October 17. Several Ukrainian and American media outlets wrote about this, citing sources, and then Trump confirmed this information.

According to Axios, Zelensky and Trump are going to discuss new supplies of American weapons to Ukraine, including Tomahawk missiles.

The presidents of the United States and Ukraine held telephone conversations twice on Saturday and Sunday. Sources tell Axios that a personal meeting after these conversations was necessary because “there are certain issues that cannot be discussed over the phone.”

On Monday, Zelensky said that a Ukrainian delegation had already flown to the United States and would hold “several important meetings” with defense companies and possibly with congressmen. The delegation, as Axios writes, is headed by the head of the office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Ermak - his tasks, among other things, include preparing Zelensky’s visit.

The President of Ukraine is expected to fly to the United States on Thursday, October 16.

The previous meeting between Zelensky and Trump took place in New York at the end of September during the session of the UN General Assembly. After it, the US President changed his rhetoric regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war - in particular, he said that Kyiv could return the territories occupied by Russia and even “go further.”

Zelensky met with Trump twice at the White House. The first negotiations at the end of February ended in a public scandal. The second meeting took place in the presence of European leaders in August, a few days after Trump's talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

Ukraine

The United States will be able to transfer no more than 50 Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv

Even if the decision to supply Tomahawks to Ukraine is made, in reality the United States will be able to transfer to Kiev from 20 to 50 missiles and no more, writes the Financial Times.

The Pentagon has purchased only about 200 of these missiles since 2022, of which 120 have already been expended during exercises. According to defense experts interviewed by the publication, in its 2026 budget, the military department requested funding for only 57 additional Tomahawks.

As military expert Stacy Pettyjohn emphasized in an interview with the publication, due to such a small number of missiles, they will not change the dynamics of the war. “Tomahawks,” she notes, will be able to complement Ukraine’s existing cruise missiles, as well as long-range drones, and thus increase the effectiveness of individual attacks, but the small volumes of supplies will “certainly be insufficient to ensure continuous attacks deep into Russian territory.”

Former Pentagon official Mark Cancian noted in a newspaper commentary that the United States has about 4,150 Tomahawk missiles.

Trump allowed the supply of Tomahawks to Ukraine following two conversations with Zelensky that took place last weekend. An unnamed Ukrainian official, in a comment to the Financial Times, emphasized that the US president has made it clear that he has not yet made a final decision - but, according to Kyiv, he is now “closer than ever” to delivering missiles.

Two other sources for the publication said Trump is considering transferring an “unspecified number” of Tomahawks, but before that he wants to get more information about how Kyiv plans to use them.

War through the eyes of Meduza readers

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Meduza's readers live in different countries and have different attitudes towards the war. We publish your letters to see this event through your eyes. Our editors try to present all points of view, even if they do not coincide with the editorial position. However, in accordance with the Meduza code, we do not publish messages that contain “hate speech,” justify the murder of civilians, or express direct support for an aggressive war.

Юрий (Одесса). The greatest pain and disappointment that befell me and my friends after the start of the war concerned neither the “brotherly Russians” nor the Ukrainian authorities. The biggest and most terrible surprise turned out to be our women - the same ones, several million of whom left for Europe, although their men were deprived of such an opportunity.

My family fell apart, as did the families of several of my relatives and friends. For a simple and surprisingly cynical reason: having “broken free” from Ukraine, wives who had been married for 10, 15, 20 years suddenly felt a “second youth” and decided to start a “new life.” Well, we started... as best we could.

And here we were running from the TCC , sitting for weeks without electricity, “catching our faces” at suicide bombs and ballistics, afraid to leave the house again, riding a minibus every time “like it was our last” - and there were no longer even loved ones for whom our life and death would be important. This became the worst nightmare that the war brought.

And, on the other hand, I know many women who refused to leave - precisely out of a sense of loyalty, out of a desire to share their fate with their loved ones. Not everyone is so lucky. And to be completely honest: it somehow turned out to be terribly mean. Very ugly.

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