ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Washington and met with several US energy and defense officials and institutions on Thursday, ahead of a meeting with President Donald Trump.

On his account on Truth Social, Trump announced that he is set to hold a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart on Friday in the Oval Office, “where we will discuss my conversation with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin.”

The American president held a phone call with Putin earlier, and the pair agreed to have a high-level meeting in Hungary “to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ war, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end,” Trump wrote.

Following his arrival, Zelensky met with US energy officials and companies on Thursday, among them was US Secretary of the Department of Energy Chris Wright, discussing “energy capacities and potential projects for partnership in the energy sector,” the Ukrainian president wrote on X.

“I spoke about Russia’s strikes on Ukraine’s energy system and the need to restore the affected facilities as quickly as possible,” he added, commending Washington’s readiness “to provide everything necessary” for Kyiv’s energy system to continue operating.

Russia has targeted several of Ukraine’s major gas facilities over the past month, prompting them to halt operations, and leading Zelensky to seek external support for imports and to restore the damage caused by the strikes.

Zelensky also met with executives of American energy companies, discussing “urgent needs of movement,” and “concrete measures to support [Ukrainian] energy system.”

Continuing his visits, the Ukrainian leader also met with representatives of two defense companies in Washington, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, highlighting the potential for collaboration and requesting defense support to counter Russia’s “increasingly brutal strikes against Ukraine.”

Earlier on Thursday, Zelensky said that Russia had overnight targeted civilian infrastructure in Ukraine with more than 300 attack drones and 37 missiles, resulting in material damage and injuries.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine were 50 percent higher in the first five months of 2025 than in the same period in 2024, according to a UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) report.

In an interview with American media, US Vice President JD Vance asserted that “Russians and the Ukrainians are just not at the point where they can make a deal,” noting that reaching a deal, while possible, requires “a lot more work.”

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands more.