President Volodymyr Zelenskyy may offer Donald Trump the opportunity to lease Ukrainian pipelines to American energy companies so they can sell to Slovakia and Hungary.
Zelenskyy to offer Trump Ukrainian pipelines in exchange for weapons
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy may offer Donald Trump the opportunity to lease Ukrainian pipelines to American energy companies so they can sell to Slovakia and Hungary.
This is one of several ideas on the table ahead of a meeting between Zelenskyy and the U.S. leader at the White House on Friday, Bloomberg reported.
Kyiv is looking to convince the U.S. to provide additional military support to help it defend its critical infrastructure from Russian strikes before winter, including air defense, long-range weaponry and urgent energy assistance.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials have been discussing the possibility of the U.S. exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to help with Ukraine’s energy needs, Bloomberg added.
In exchange, Zelenskyy could offer Trump the possibility of U.S. energy companies using Ukrainian pipeline infrastructure to export to neighboring Slovakia and Hungary.
Ukraine could receive American LNG via Poland, which already receives much of its gas from the U.S., as well as Norway and other European countries. How the leasing of Ukrainian pipelines to US companies would work in practice is as yet unclear.
“We have already prepared our part of the homework ahead of the meeting with President Trump – both the military component and the economic one,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
