Zelensky says security guarantees for Ukraine will include a ‘strong army,’ U.S. weapons deal, and domestic drone production

Security guarantees for Ukraine will include its own “strong army,” an agreement with the United States to purchase weapons, and domestic drone production, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a press briefing after his meeting at the White House.

Zelensky stressed that Ukraine “cannot lose its army,” which must be the first element of security guarantees. “The army cannot be reduced several times over simply because you lack funding. And we won’t have that kind of funding — it physically won’t exist in our budget — so we need additional resources,” he said.

The second component is the agreement reported earlier by the Financial Times. According to the FT, Kyiv promised Washington it would buy $100 billion worth of U.S. weapons using European funds. “There is indeed a package with our proposals for $90 billion,” Zelensky confirmed. The Ukrainian outlet Hromadske clarified that this refers to weapons Ukraine does not produce itself, such as aircraft and air defense systems.

The same proposal also included a $50 billion deal with Washington for Ukrainian companies to manufacture drones. Zelensky called domestic drone production the third part of Ukraine’s security guarantees.

He added that Ukraine’s partners will expand these guarantees, with further details expected within the next seven to ten days.

After the White House meeting with Zelensky and European leaders, President Donald Trump wrote that one of the topics was security guarantees for Ukraine, “provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America.” He offered no further details.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that work on the security guarantees concept is being led by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, together with a group of “now 30 countries, including Japan and Australia.” “The U.S. has now said that [it] wants to get involved in this. What that exactly will mean, the U.S. involvement, will be discussed over the coming days,” Rutte told Fox News.