Zelensky Says $16 Billion in Promised US Aid Never Arrived as Trump Meets Putin Envoy and Hails Near Ukraine Deal

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that $16 billion in assistance previously agreed with the United States was never delivered to Kyiv, and that Ukraine must now fight to recover the money, as President Donald Trump met Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev at the White House and declared that a deal to end the war in Ukraine was very close.

The two developments, unfolding within hours of each other on Thursday, captured the strange double reality of the war as it enters its fifth year: diplomacy accelerating at the top, with American, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators due to sit down together in Abu Dhabi next week, while Russian missiles and drones hammer Ukraine’s power grid and rescue workers dig through the rubble of a bombed aid centre in the south of the country.

Zelensky made his case in an interview with the Ukrainian television channel TSN on 5 November, two days after voters in the United States handed the Democratic Party control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections. According to the Kyiv Independent, the president said Ukraine now had “increased chances” of securing additional aid, and that Kyiv needed to adapt to the new political landscape in Washington.

“We need to raise the issue of the $16 billion that was previously agreed upon but not provided to Ukraine,” Zelensky said, according to the Kyiv Independent. “We are grateful for everything that has been given, but at the very least, Ukraine must fight for these funds.”

Speaking to reporters at the White House on the same day, Trump said he had met Dmitriev, President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy, and that the Russia-Ukraine war was very close to being settled. According to Reuters, Trump said the agreement would be a big one and could involve more than Ukraine alone.

“It’s going to be an agreement. It’s going to be a big agreement, and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine… I could even say it might involve all of Europe. It’s going to be a big, beautiful agreement, and everyone’s going to be thrilled,” Trump said, according to Reuters.

Trump added that he did not meet with the Ukrainian delegation on Thursday, Reuters reported.

The $16 billion gap

Zelensky did not specify which agreements the missing $16 billion related to, or whether the funds had been formally appropriated by Congress, according to reports of the interview. What he did make clear was the shape of the problem as Kyiv sees it: money promised under earlier decisions, formed under former President Joe Biden, was blocked after the 2024 elections by Republicans and the Trump administration, and has never reached Ukraine.

The last major aid package from the United States was approved under Biden in 2024, according to reports of Zelensky’s remarks. Since then, direct American military and financial assistance to Kyiv has been halted, a decision that senior Democrats have sharply criticised, according to The Times.

The scale of what Washington has already provided is vast. According to United States government oversight figures cited in reports, America has appropriated roughly $196 billion in cumulative funding for Ukraine since 2022. Zelensky’s argument is not that the United States has given too little, but that a specific, agreed sum — $16 billion — was frozen and never provided, and that Kyiv is entitled to press for it.

“Ukraine needs to move towards a new political infrastructure in the United States of America,” Zelensky told TSN correspondent Olena Cherniakova, according to the Kyiv Independent. “We need to consolidate the bipartisan support we have. Understanding the shifting power dynamics, it is crucial to build the right dialogue.”

The president’s message was aimed squarely at the new political reality in Washington. With Democrats set to control the Senate and the House of Representatives from 2027, Zelensky said Ukraine had a fresh opening to unlock assistance packages that had been drawn up under Biden and then stalled. The Kyiv Independent reported that Zelensky believed the Democratic victory gave Kyiv “increased chances” of securing more aid.

But the president was also careful to frame the appeal as bipartisan. His language — consolidating support across both parties, building the right dialogue — reflected an awareness that Ukraine cannot afford to be seen as the client of one American party. The country’s survival depends on American weapons and money regardless of who holds the gavel in Congress, and Zelensky has spent the past year working to repair a relationship with Trump that was badly damaged in their Oval Office meeting in February 2025, when the American president accused him of being ungrateful for Washington’s support.

Patriots first: Ukraine’s most urgent need

For all the talk of money, Zelensky was blunt about what Ukraine needs most urgently: air defence. The top priority for Kyiv, he said, is securing more Patriot missiles for Ukraine’s depleted air defence systems.

“If we don’t solve the Patriot problem, it will get very tough for us,” Zelensky said, according to the Kyiv Independent. “This issue could be solved by Europe, some countries outside Europe, and, of course, the United States of America. This is the number one priority.”

The urgency is not abstract. Russian attacks have pummeled Ukraine in recent weeks and caused severe power and water shortages. According to the United Nations, the first two weeks of October saw some of the highest rates of civilian deaths since the start of the war.

On 30 October, the United States State Department approved a possible $2.1 billion sale of 500 Patriot interceptor missiles to Ukraine. The same day, NATO’s top military commander said deliveries of American-made weapons purchased by European allies were continuing without delays, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Zelensky welcomed the decision but warned that deliveries could begin “only in a few years”, while Ukraine needs the missiles this winter to defend its energy infrastructure against Russian attacks. He urged the United States and its partners to provide interceptors from existing stockpiles and replenish them later through the new contracts.

In addition to Patriot missiles, Zelensky said securing more F-16 fighter jets and their 20-millimetre ammunition was vital to Ukrainian security. The jets are used by Ukrainian forces to defend against waves of jet-powered drones used by Moscow to attack targets across Ukraine, according to the Kyiv Independent.

A very close deal, Trump says

Trump’s meeting with Dmitriev came as the White House pushes hard for a settlement. According to Reuters, the president told reporters at the White House on Thursday that he had met Putin’s envoy and that the war was very close to being settled, with an agreement that might involve all of Europe.

The meeting was the latest in a series of direct contacts between the Trump administration and Moscow. United States envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Putin in October, and Zelensky said at the time that he had spoken with both men afterwards, according to Reuters.

Trump has accused Zelensky of being the main obstacle to peace, despite Russia rejecting several Ukrainian ceasefire proposals, according to The Times. That framing has alarmed Kyiv and its European allies, who fear a deal imposed on Ukraine that trades territory for a ceasefire without the security guarantees that would prevent Russia from attacking again.

The president’s optimism about a deal also sits uneasily alongside the state of the war itself. Russia has shown no sign of easing its campaign against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, and its forces continue offensive operations in several directions, including around Hulyaipole and in western Zaporizhzhia region, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

Abu Dhabi: the first talks in nine months

The next test of whether the diplomacy is real comes on 10 and 11 November in Abu Dhabi, where the United States will bring together Ukrainian and Russian delegations to discuss ending the conflict, postwar security agreements and de-escalation, according to Reuters.

The talks will be the first between the two sides in nine months, and the first to be hosted under American auspices at this level since the Trump administration took office. Zelensky said in October that peace negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States had agreed to meet at a technical level in the first half of November in Abu Dhabi, adding that he hoped a meeting of the countries’ leaders would follow, according to Reuters.

Zelensky told the Hudson Institute think tank via video link in October that he had spoken with Witkoff and Kushner after their meeting with Putin, and that any peace agreement would need strong security guarantees for Ukraine and funding for ten years to maintain the Ukrainian army, according to Reuters. He also stressed that Europe should be involved in the talks, and that much would depend on Russia, noting that a similar meeting expected earlier had not materialised.

The Abu Dhabi format matters. Technical-level talks, rather than a leaders’ summit, suggest the two sides are still working through the hardest questions: territory, security guarantees, the future of Ukraine’s armed forces, and what happens to the sanctions regime against Russia. A technical meeting that produces a framework could lead to a leaders’ meeting; a technical meeting that collapses would tell the world that the gaps are still too wide.

Trump’s remark that a deal might involve “all of Europe” hints at the scale of what is being discussed. A settlement that touches European security architecture, sanctions, frozen Russian assets and the future of NATO’s eastern flank cannot be struck by Washington and Moscow alone, whatever the White House might prefer. European capitals, which have carried much of the financial and military burden of supporting Ukraine in recent months, will expect a seat at the table, and Zelensky has said explicitly that Europe should be involved.

The war on the ground

While diplomats talk, the war grinds on. On the night of 3 to 4 November, Russia launched one of its largest attacks of the year on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, hitting facilities in ten regions, according to Ukraine’s energy ministry. The Institute for the Study of War reported that the long-range drone and missile campaign heavily targeted central and western Ukraine and caused significant power outages across the country, with emergency power cuts in Kyiv and several other regions.

Two days earlier, on 2 November, Russian guided bombs struck a former school being used to distribute humanitarian aid in the village of Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhzhia region. According to Zelensky, the confirmed death toll had risen to 40 by 4 November, with more than 30 people possibly still buried under the rubble, and the toll could reach about 70. Russia’s defence ministry said the strike targeted Ukrainian military personnel and claimed as many as 25 Ukrainian service members were killed, according to reports. Ukraine said the attack involved a double strike, with nine more bombs hitting the shelter where people had taken cover after the first bomb fell.

The attack wasted an opportunity created by a ceasefire and humanitarian mission the previous week in the frontline village of Oleshky, Zelensky said, and showed that Russia did not want de-escalation, according to reports.

The strikes on the energy grid and the aid centre are part of a pattern. Russia’s winter campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure is designed to break civilian morale and force Kyiv to negotiate from weakness, and the timing — on the eve of the American midterm elections and days before the Abu Dhabi talks — was unlikely to be accidental. Each blackout and each civilian casualty hardens the Ukrainian public’s view of what a settlement must contain, and raises the political cost for Zelensky of any deal that looks like surrender.

Why the midterms changed Kyiv’s maths

The Democratic sweep in the midterm elections on 3 November has changed the political geometry of the war in Washington, even if it has not yet changed a single dollar of aid. Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, and with that comes the power to vote on restoring direct financial and military aid to Ukraine, according to Reuters.

For Ukraine, the result offers a glimmer of hope that the new Congress will act as a check on Trump’s pivot towards Moscow, according to The Times. Top Democrats have sharply criticised the president’s decision to pause sanctions against Russia and halt American military and financial assistance for Kyiv.

There are limits, however, and Zelensky knows them. Although Democrats may succeed in pushing through bills on aid for Ukraine or harsher sanctions on Russia, Trump will still retain the right to impose a presidential veto, according to The Times. Republican politicians recently backed tough new sanctions against Moscow and countries such as China and India that purchase Russian oil and gas, and although Trump signed the bill into law in September, he also issued an immediate waiver, citing United States national interests, according to The Times.

American public opinion, meanwhile, remains more supportive of Ukraine than the politics of Washington might suggest. Just over 60 per cent of Americans support providing weapons to Ukraine and imposing new sanctions on Russia if it refuses to call off its invasion, according to a poll by Harvard CAPS and Harris published in October and cited by The Times. Trump’s decision to cease direct military assistance to Ukraine is unpopular with American voters, according to The Times.

Zelensky also told German broadcaster ZDF in an interview on Wednesday that he hoped the Democratic win would boost support for Kyiv and bring an end to the war closer. “There is hope now that there is this balance of power, and that we will be supported more,” he said, according to The Times. He added that if the United States Congress backs more financial or military support for Ukraine, it would “influence” Putin and could lead to “possible negotiations and a possible peace”.

Analysis: Why It Matters

Two clocks are running, and they point in opposite directions

The most important thing about 5 November is that two clocks started ticking at once, and they measure different things. One is the diplomatic clock: Abu Dhabi on 10 and 11 November, a possible leaders’ meeting after that, and a president in Washington who says a deal is very close. The other is the winter clock: Russian strikes on the power grid, Patriots running short, and temperatures falling across a country whose people have already endured four winters of war. Diplomacy rewards patience and ambiguity; winter rewards neither. Every week that passes without more interceptors makes Ukraine weaker at the negotiating table, which is precisely why Moscow is bombing the grid now. The question is not whether talks happen, but whether they happen fast enough to matter before the winter does its work.

The $16 billion is leverage, not just accounting

Zelensky’s $16 billion figure should be read as a political instrument as much as a balance-sheet item. He did not say which agreements the money was tied to, and he did not claim Congress had appropriated it. What he did was put a number on a grievance that every Ukrainian understands: promises were made, and then the politics changed, and the money never came. By naming the sum in the first interview after the midterms, he gave the new Democratic majorities in Congress a concrete, defensible target — money already agreed, not new money — and he gave himself a talking point that does not require him to beg. “We are grateful for everything that has been given, but at the very least, Ukraine must fight for these funds” is the language of a creditor, not a supplicant. That is a deliberate choice, and it tells you how Zelensky intends to play the next two months.

Trump’s “big agreement” needs Europe, whether he wants it or not

Trump’s promise of a deal involving “all of Europe” is either a recognition of reality or a warning, and it is too early to know which. A settlement that ends the war will have to answer questions that belong to Europe as much as to Ukraine or Russia: what happens to sanctions, who pays for reconstruction, what security guarantees are worth, and whether frozen Russian assets are used to rebuild what Russian bombs destroyed. None of those questions can be answered in a room containing only Americans and Russians. European governments have spent the past year building the machinery to support Ukraine without Washington — buying American weapons, funding Kyiv’s budget, tightening their own sanctions — and they will not accept a deal struck over their heads. The Abu Dhabi format, with its technical level and its promise of a leaders’ meeting to follow, is where that tension will first become visible.

The Patriot gap is the real deadline

Strip away the diplomacy and the politics, and the war still turns on a single, unglamorous fact: Ukraine does not have enough interceptor missiles. Zelensky said it plainly — “If we don’t solve the Patriot problem, it will get very tough for us” — and the numbers back him up. A $2.1 billion sale approved on 30 October sounds impressive until you learn that deliveries could begin “only in a few years”. Ukraine needs interceptors from existing stockpiles this winter, not contracts that mature in 2029. That is why the president’s appeal is aimed as much at European capitals as at Washington, and why the F-16s and their ammunition matter too: every drone that a fighter jet shoots down is one fewer missile the Patriots have to stop. Whoever controls the flow of interceptors over the next ninety days controls the winter, and whoever controls the winter has the stronger hand in Abu Dhabi.

What the midterms can — and cannot — do

The Democratic victory changes the conversation in Washington, but it does not change the presidency. Congress can pass aid bills and sanctions bills, and a Democratic House and Senate can force votes that embarrass the White House, but Trump holds the veto, and he has already shown he will waive sanctions he has signed into law. The midterms matter most in two quieter ways. First, they give Zelensky a second audience in Washington — a Congress that wants to help Ukraine and can keep the issue alive in public. Second, they change Putin’s calculations: a president who could count on a free hand in Washington now faces a legislature that may constrain him, and a Russian leader who reads American politics carefully will have noticed. But hope is not the same as hardware, and Zelensky’s interview was careful to keep the two separate. The Democrats’ win is an opening, not a delivery. The delivery still has to be negotiated, voted on, signed, and shipped — and winter is not waiting.

What to Watch Next

1. Abu Dhabi, 10–11 November: whether the technical-level talks produce a framework for a leaders’ meeting, or break down over territory and security guarantees — and whether Europe is given a formal role.
2. The Patriot pipeline: whether the United States or its European allies agree to transfer interceptors from existing stockpiles to Ukraine this winter, rather than relying on the $2.1 billion sale whose deliveries could take years.
3. The $16 billion question in Congress: whether Democratic leaders in the House and Senate take up Zelensky’s claim and push to unlock the frozen funds, and how the White House responds.
4. Russia’s winter campaign: whether the strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid intensify in the run-up to the Abu Dhabi talks, and whether Kyiv’s air defences hold through the coldest months.
5. Trump’s next move: whether the president meets the Ukrainian delegation after his meeting with Dmitriev, and what his “big, beautiful agreement” actually contains when its terms become public.

Sources

• Reuters — Trump says he met Putin envoy Dmitriev (5 November 2026)
• Kyiv Independent, via EuropeSays — Ukraine needs to consolidate ‘bipartisan support’ in US following midterm elections, Zelensky says (6 November 2026)
• Reuters — Zelenskiy says Ukrainian, Russian and US negotiators to meet in early November in Abu Dhabi (23 October 2026)
• Institute for the Study of War — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, 4 November 2026
• The Times — Will Democratic surge in US midterms change Putin’s calculations on Ukraine? (5 November 2026)