President Trump shared a compassionate exchange Wednesday with a Ukrainian journalist who said her husband was a soldier — as she asked whether the US would supply the embattled country with Patriot missiles in its war against Moscow.
At a press conference at the end of the NATO Summit in The Hague, BBC Ukraine correspondent Myroslava Petsa asked the president “whether or not the US is ready to sell anti-air missile systems to Ukraine.”
“We know that Russia has been pounding Ukraine really heavily right now,” she added.
Before addressing her question, Trump asked Petsa: “Are you living, yourself, now in Ukraine?”
“My husband is there,” she said. “And me with the kids, I’m in Warsaw [Poland], actually. Because he wanted me to.”
“Is your husband a soldier?” Trump asked, to which Petsa answered: “He is.”
“He’s there now?” the president asked again, with Petsa responding affirmatively.
A visibly moved Trump responded, “Wow, that’s rough stuff, right? That’s tough.”
Trump then went on to affirm that Kyiv wants to buy the weapons from the US — and pledged that “we’re going to see if we can make some available.”
“You know, they’re very hard to get. We need them too,” the president continued. “We were supplying them to Israel, and they’re very effective — 100% effective. Hard to believe how effective. And they do want that more than any other thing, as you probably know.”
“That’s a very good question, and I wish you a lot of luck,” Trump told Petsa. “I mean, I can see it’s very upsetting to you.
“Say hello to your husband, OK? Thank you,” the president added before taking more questions.
Trump has been growing impatient with Putin, lashing out in response to some of Russia’s most brutal attacks on Ukraine — such as a barrage of 300 drone and missile attacks last month, which prompted the president to rip the Russian leader as “crazy.”
Still, the administration has been reticent about ratcheting up sanctions on Russia, despite a growing push from Congress to do so.
