Volodymyr Zelensky had a busy itinerary during his latest visit to the Washington, DC.

During his meeting at the Capitol, the Ukrainian leader argued that they have a window to bring Russian president Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, according to one of the people with direct knowledge of the meeting.

The meeting was held just before a key vote on the Russia sanctions bill and after Lindsey Graham’s funeral.

In a bipartisan 86-12 vote, the Senate took the first steps toward passage of legislation to penalise countries that continue to buy Russian oil, gas and other exports after more than a year of negotiations.

The bill has dozens of backers from both major political parties and is seen as the main policy tribute to Graham, who died unexpectedly this month from a tear in his aorta. It imposes tariffs on goods from the world’s top five purchasers of Russia oil or natural gas, including China and India.

The legislation also includes sanctions against Putin; senior Russian political and military leaders; and Russian financial institutions and energy projects.

Ahead of his meeting with Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia has been aiding Iran as the war persists by capturing satellite imagery of US bases in the Gulf region that later appear in Iran.

The Ukrainian president also asserted that there was a “clear correlation” between Russia’s images and subsequent Iranian strikes.

Iran is a key ally of Russia in its war against Ukraine and has helped Moscow build up its drone expertise.

But on Monday, the US president downplayed any impact of potential Russian assistance for Iran.

“I don’t think they’ve been doing it, certainly not at a high level,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he travelled to Michigan.

“And if they have, it has been very un-impactful.

”On the Caspian Sea attack, the foreign ministers of Iran and Ukraine spoke about the matter, according to statements posted on social media Tuesday.

Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha called the conversation “frank” and said Ukraine’s focus is “solely at defending our country from Russian aggression” and not on targeting civilians.

Iran has said at least one sailor was killed in the attack. For his part, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran is also not seeking escalation but “made clear any attack on our citizens or interests is unacceptable.”

Donald Trump on Tuesday night weighed in on his meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, calling it a “great honour” to meet with him. “Many things were discussed.

The meeting went very well!” he wrote on Truth Social.

The sit-down between Trump and the Ukrainian president in the Oval Office, which was closed to the media, followed a consequential meeting at the Nato summit earlier this month in Ankara, Turkey, where the US president announced that they will give Ukraine a license to make Patriot defence systems – a long-running request from Kyiv to counter Russian missile attacks.

Posting about it on social media, Zelensky said: “The President and I discussed licenses for Patriot interceptor production and several other ideas that could help.”

US president Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky met on Tuesday ahead of senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral, with the two leaders discussing ways for Ukraine to produce its own powerful weapons and “other ideas that could help” in its ongoing war against Russia.

Taken together, those meetings underscore how much the US president, once a major skeptic of continued assistance to Kyiv, has warmed to Zelensky as Ukraine continues to withstand the Russian barrage more than four years after Moscow’s invasion in 2022.

In a post on social media after the meeting, Zelensky thanked Trump for the “good meeting” and the Republican administration’s efforts to aid Kyiv in the long-running war.

Officials also agreed that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s main envoys, would make a trip to Kyiv sometime in the future, according to a person familiar with the talks who was granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting.

A number of industrial facilities in ⁠the central Russian city of Ryazan caught fire ⁠after ​a ⁠drone attack, regional governor Pavel ⁠Malkov said ​on ⁠Telegram on ‌Wednesday, and six people were seeking ‌medical help.

He ‌did not provide details about ⁠the facilities in the region, home to a number of large industrial complexes, ‌including an ​oil refinery and ‌a ⁠logistics hub.

The US Senate is set to vote on sweeping Russian energy sanctions in what is seen as a tribute to the late Senator Lindsey Graham, who authored the bill.

It comes as Volodymyr Zelensky visits the Capitol to meet with Donald Trump and attend Graham’s funeral service.

Graham was among Kyiv’s most influential and outspoken allies in Congress in its four-year-old war against Russia, and the bill aims to increase economic pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

Senate leaders scheduled a procedural vote on the bill, which seeks to impose sanctions on Russian officials and place stiff tariffs on China, India and other countries to reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas.

Republican President Donald Trump has said he would support the measure, after asking that sanctions on Iran be added, which they have been as the US war against Iran enters its sixth month.

Though Democrats are broadly supportive of the sanctions, the tariff authority for Trump has raised concerns about potentially higher import costs. Those concerns threaten the legislation’s prospects for passing the Senate, ⁠as well as the House of Representatives when it resumes in September.

If it becomes law, the bill would allow Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100 per cent on countries that are major consumers of Russian energy, including India, Japan and some countries in the European Union, and leave it to his discretion to lift them.

An ​apartment building in Chekhov near Russian capital Moscow ⁠has been hit in a drone attack and ⁠local authorities ​are verifying ⁠information on casualties, ⁠regional governor Andrei Vorobyov ​said ⁠in a ‌Telegram post on Tuesday.

Vorobyov accompanied his ‌post with ‌a photograph of a tall building ⁠with blown-out windows and black smoke rising from its top floors.

Defences downed a few dozen ‌drones elsewhere ​in the ‌region, including in ⁠Podolsk, Domodedovo ⁠and Kolomna, Vorobyov said.