Donald Trump said he will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York on Friday.
The Republican presidential nominee told a news conference that the two would meet at around 09:45 ET (14:45 BST) at his Trump Tower compound.
The meeting is expected to go ahead despite earlier reports that it was canceled due to growing anger from Republicans after Zelensky visited the US state of Pennsylvania.
On Thursday, Zelensky met with US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House to discuss his “victory plan”, which he hopes will pressure Russia to agree to an end to the war.
“President Zelensky asked to meet with me, and I will meet with him tomorrow morning,” Trump told reporters in New York.
“And it’s a shame what’s happening in Ukraine. So much death, so much destruction. It’s terrible.”
Trump said he believed he could “make a deal” between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky “very quickly”.
When pressed to give details of such a deal, he replied: “I don’t want to tell you what that looks like”.
The former US president was speaking after Zelensky met with Biden and Harris. Hours earlier, Biden had announced another $7.9bn (£5.9bn) military aid package to Ukraine.
Speaking to the Ukrainian president after their meeting, Harris said “there are some people in my country” who “will force Ukraine to give up large parts of its independent territories”.
“These proposals are similar to those of Putin,” he said, calling them “surrender proposals”.
Asked at a press conference by a reporter whether Ukraine should give Russia land to end the war, Trump did not answer directly.
“Let’s find peace,” he said. “We need peace. We need to stop the death and destruction.”
Friday’s meeting comes amid a tug-of-war between Zelensky and Republicans ahead of the US presidential election in November.
Some Republicans were angered by Zelensky’s visit to a weapons factory in Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, with top Democrats this week, including Governor Josh Shapiro.
Zelensky’s visit to the key nation was marked by leading Republicans as a campaign event for the party.
In a public letter, the speaker of the US House, Mike Johnson, said that the trip was “designed to help the Democrats” and that it amounted to “election interference”.
Trump and Zelensky have a strained relationship.
In 2019, Trump was impeached by the US House for allegedly pressuring the Ukrainian leader to dig up damaging information about a political rival. A negative transcript of the call revealed that Trump urged Zelensky to investigate Biden, as well as Biden’s son.
Trump has grown increasingly critical of US funding to Ukraine, and in recent days has stepped up his attacks on Zelensky, calling him “the biggest traitor on Earth”.
Zelensky recently told the New Yorker magazine that he believes Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war”.
When asked about Zelensky’s comments on Thursday, Trump replied: “I believe I disagree with him. He doesn’t know.”
Source link
