WASHINGTON — Standing alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris admonished any suggestion that Ukraine should end the war by relinquishing territory to Russia.
Zelensky and Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, met for the seventh time during Harris’ term as vice president, when the Ukrainian leader visited the White House and the U.S. Capitol.
Zelensky is expected to meet in New York on Friday morning with former President Donald Trump, who said at a news conference behind schedule Thursday that he would be able to make an agreement “pretty quickly” between Ukraine and Russia.
“I don’t want to tell you what it looks like,” said Trump, the GOP nominee who is in a tight race with Harris for the Oval Office.
Zelensky’s meetings Thursday included separate one-on-one talks with President Joe Biden to ensure continued support for the United States as it faces the possibility of a change of power after the rapidly approaching 2024 elections.
Harris announced the need for “order and stability in our world” and reiterated her commitment to work with NATO allies to defend Ukraine against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, almost a decade after his forcible annexation of Ukraine Crimea. Peninsula.
“Without Ukraine, no decision can be made to end this war,” Harris said in the comments broadcast live on C-SPAN.
“However, I sincerely share with you, Mr. President, that there are those in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up a large part of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality, and who would require Ukraine to abandon its security relations with other nations,” Harris continued during brief joint remarks with Zelensky to the press. “These proposals are the same as those proposed by Putin.”
Harris made the comments a day after Trump he said crowd at a rally in North Carolina that Biden and Harris have “allowed” the ongoing war by “feeding Zelensky money and ammunition the likes of which neither country has ever seen before.”
United Nations
Zelensky’s visits to Washington took place this week in New York during the UN General Assembly, where Zelensky again told world leaders that I want “territorial integrity” of his nation.
Zelensky and Biden met in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon, where they discussed the Ukrainian leader’s “victory plan,” which requires U.S. authorities to fire Western missiles deep into Russia’s borders.
“Your determination is extremely important for us to win” – Zelensky he said Biden in front of reporters.
In brief joint remarks to the press, Biden said: “I see two key pieces. “First of all, now we need to strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield.”
Biden announced that Congress would provide $7.9 billion appropriated for Ukraine and ordered the remaining funds to be distributed by the last day of his term of office, i.e. January 20, 2025.
“This will strengthen Ukraine’s position in future negotiations,” Biden said.
Ukraine is expected to ask the US for more assistance in the coming months.
Since Biden took office, the United States has provided more than $59.3 billion in security assistance, the extensive majority of which was awarded after Russia’s invasion, according to Pentagon data. General U.S. foreign assistance to Ukraine from 2022 sum approximately $175 billion.
Biden, Harris and Zelensky did not respond to questions from journalists after the meetings.
Zelensky will go to the Capitol again
Zelensky began Thursday with meetings on Capitol Hill, splitting time with Senate and House lawmakers in the absence of House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The meetings took place less than 24 hours after Johnson wrote the letter letter to Zelensky, demanding the firing of the Ukrainian ambassador to the US for organizing the Ukrainian president’s trip with Democrats to Pennsylvania, a key swing state in the 2024 presidential election.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro led Zelensky on a trip Sunday at the Scranton ammunition plant. They were joined by Sen. Bob Casey and Republican Matt Cartwright, both Pennsylvania Democrats running for re-election.
“The facility was located in a politically contentious battleground, was run by a top political surrogate of Kamala Harris, and did not include a single Republican because – on purpose – no Republicans were invited. “This trip was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and clearly constitutes election interference,” wrote Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana.
Republican James Comer of Kentucky, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, on Wednesday launched an investigation into the “abuse of government resources that allowed Zelensky to interfere in the 2024 presidential election.”
Lawmakers leaving the meetings told reporters that Zelensky did not comment on Johnson’s letter, but rather talked about the war effort and Ukraine’s desire to operate long-range missiles to target military assets further inside Russia.
Republican Senator John Boozman, who serves on the U.S. Helsinki Commission, told reporters that “the more damage we can do, the faster we can do it, the better off we will be.”
“If this case drags on forever, it will benefit the Russians,” said Boozman of Arkansas.
Asked by reporters whether Biden should give Zelenskiy permission to strike deeper into Russia, Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado replied: “I hope that happens.”
Bennet, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told reporters that he would not repeat “anything that anyone else has said in this room” but said he “doesn’t hear” any concerns about fears of Russia, a nuclear power plant, stoking retaliation on NATO allies.
Rep. Joe Wilson, chairman of the US Helsinki Commission, told reporters that the meeting with Zelensky was “positive” and reiterated his support for Ukraine’s victory.
He attributed Johnson’s absence to possible “scheduling” issues.
Wilson, who is also co-chair of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, said he was “confident everything will work out” regarding Johnson’s rebuke of Zelensky. Wilson then quickly began praising Trump’s approval of US arms sales to Ukraine in 2017.
When pressed by States Newsroom about Trump refusal to say whether he wants Ukraine to win the war, Wilson defended the former president.
“I defer to President Trump, but again, I really appreciate that it was Donald Trump who tried to avoid all of this,” the South Carolina Republican said.
Trump was questioned by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019, but acquitted by the Senate in favor risky withholding security aid to Ukraine unless Zelensky publicly announces an investigation into Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election, won by former vice president Barack Obama.
Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.
