Efforts underway for Zelenskyy-Trump meeting at UN next week
Trump presses for a solution to end Ukraine’s war with Russia as oil prices surge. Efforts are underway to organise a “meaningful” meeting between United States President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the United Nations General Assembly next week. Ukrainian and US diplomatic teams are “actively” working to set up a meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump at the 81st UN General Assembly session in New York, according to press briefing by Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi. Tykhyi said Zelenskyy’s visit will include dozens of bilateral negotiations and engagements with US legislators, business leaders and the Ukrainian community in the US. Zelenskyy and Trump last met at the White House in July in a much-anticipated encounter after a heated 2025 televised meeting at the Oval Office ended abruptly, with US Vice President JD Vance calling Zelenskyy “disrespectful” for not thanking the US for its support for Ukraine. As Ukrainian officials were preparing for the UN visit, a Russian drone strike on a bus killed at least five people and injured seven others on Wednesday in the city of Nikopol near the southern Ukraine front line. The number of civilians killed in Ukraine has increased sharply this year, according to the UN, amid an escalation in Russian strikes. At least 1,396 civilians were killed and 7,978 wounded in Ukraine during the first six months of 2026, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, a 37 percent increase from the same period in the previous year. Along with the Iran conflict, the war in Ukraine is also having an impact on diesel prices, according to the International Energy Agency. Last week, Trump urged Zelenskyy to halt strikes on Russian diesel infrastructure, saying the attacks were to blame for a global fuel shortage that was driving up prices, not the war with Iran. And on Sunday, Trump said the increase in the price of diesel “isn’t done by the Middle East, this is done by what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine”. Zelenskyy says Ukraine is ready to halt its attacks on Russian territory if the US can secure a commitment from Moscow to not hit Ukrainian infrastructure.
