WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday in admonishing any suggestion that Ukraine end its war by ceding 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 in a news conference slow Thursday that he could “get a deal done pretty quickly” between Ukraine and Russia.
“I don’t want to tell you what that looks like,” said Trump, the GOP nominee who is in a tight race for the Oval Office with Harris.
Zelensky’s meetings on Thursday included a separate one-on-one meeting with President Joe Biden to shore up ongoing support as the United States faces the possibility of a transition of power after upcoming elections in 2024.
Harris proclaimed the need for “order and stability in our world” and reiterated her promise to work with NATO allies to defend Ukraine from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who died in February 2022, nearly a decade after the violent annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea a large-scale invasion was launched on the peninsula.
“Without Ukraine, nothing can decide the end of this war,” Harris said in his comments streamed live on C-SPAN.
“However, I tell you, Mr. President, quite openly that there are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality and that Ukraine would demand to forego “security relations with other nations,” Harris continued during brief joint remarks with Zelensky to the press. “These proposals are the same as Putin’s.”
Harris delivered the comments a day after Trump told A rally crowd in North Carolina claimed that Biden and Harris had “allowed” the ongoing war by “providing Zelensky with money and ammunition the likes of which no country has ever seen before.”
United Nations
Zelensky’s visits to Washington came as the United Nations General Assembly gathered in New York City this week, where Zelensky again told world leaders that he wants “territorial integrity” for his nation.
Zelensky and Biden met in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon, where they discussed the Ukrainian leader’s “victory plan,” which calls for authorizing the U.S. to fire Western missiles deeper within Russia’s borders.
“Your determination is incredibly important for our victory,” Zelensky said told Biden in front of reporters.
In brief joint remarks to the press, Biden said: “I see two key points. First, we must now strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield.”
Biden announced the release of $7.9 billion in Congress appropriated for Ukraine and ordered that the remaining money be allocated by his last day in office, January 20, 2025.
“This will strengthen Ukraine’s position in future negotiations,” Biden said.
Ukraine is expected to request further assistance from the US in the coming months.
According to the Pentagon, the U.S. has provided more than $59.3 billion in security assistance since Biden took office, the immense majority of which came after Russia’s invasion. Overall, US foreign aid to Ukraine has increased since 2022 summed up around 175 billion US dollars.
Biden, Harris and Zelensky did not respond to reporters’ called questions about their respective meetings.
Zelensky goes to the Capitol again
Zelensky began Thursday with meetings on Capitol Hill, sharing time with Senate and House lawmakers while U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson was absent.
The meetings took place less than 24 hours after Johnson’s letter letter to Zelensky, who called on him to fire the Ukrainian ambassador to the US because he organized a trip by the Ukrainian president together with the Democrats to Pennsylvania, a key swing state in the 2024 presidential election.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro led Zelensky on a tour Sunday at a munitions factory in Scranton. They were joined by Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Matt Cartwright, both Pennsylvania Democrats up for re-election.
“The facility was in a politically contested state, was run by a high-level political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and did not contain a single Republican because — intentionally — no Republicans were invited. The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and clearly constitutes election interference,” wrote Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana.
Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, launched an investigation Wednesday into the “misuse of government resources that allowed Zelensky to interfere in the 2024 presidential election.”
Lawmakers leaving the sessions told reporters that Zelensky did not comment on Johnson’s letter but rather spoke about the war effort and Ukraine’s desire to employ long-range missiles to further attack military assets in Russia.
Republican Senator John Boozman, who is a member of the US Helsinki Commission, told reporters: “The more damage we can do, the sooner, the better off we will be.”
“It’s to the Russians’ advantage if this thing drags on forever,” said Boozman from Arkansas.
Asked by reporters whether Biden should give Zelensky permission to move deeper into Russia, Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado said: “I hope he will.”
Bennet, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters he would “not repeat anything anyone else in this room said” but said he had “heard no concern” about fueling nuclear power Russia. to retaliate against NATO allies.
Rep. Joe Wilson, chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, told reporters the meeting with Zelensky was “positive” and reiterated his support for a Ukrainian victory.
He attributed Johnson’s absence to a possible “scheduling issue.”
Wilson, who is also co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, said he was “confident that everything will work out” regarding Johnson’s rebuke of Zelensky. Wilson then quickly moved on to praise Trump’s approval of a U.S. arms sale to Ukraine in 2017.
At the urging of the US newsroom on Trump Refusal to say Whether he wants Ukraine to win the war, Wilson defended the former president.
“I trust President Trump, but I really appreciate that it was Donald Trump who tried to avoid all of this,” the South Carolina Republican said.
Trump was accused by the US House of Representatives in 2019, but acquitted by the Senate because threatening to withhold security aid to Ukraine unless Zelensky publicly announced an investigation into Biden before the 2020 presidential election, which the former vice president won under Barack Obama.
Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.
