KYIV – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday as “long and substantive”, saying the two talked about achieving a ceasefire in the Russian war in Ukraine.

Zelenskiy had hoped to use a 50-minute meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in The Hague to lobby Trump for investment in Ukraine’s defense effort against Russia.

“We covered all the truly important issues. I thank Mr. President, I thank the United States,” he wrote on X.

“We discussed how to achieve a ceasefire and a real peace.

We spoke about how to protect our people.”

Russia’s February 2022 invasion is grinding toward its three-and-a-half year mark, and Trump has shown no sign of resuming the donations of weaponry that his predecessor Joe Biden had instituted.

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(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa;Editing by Alison Williams, Alexandra Hudson)