KIEV (REUTERS) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asked whether US President Donald Trump had put pressure on him during a July phone call, said nobody can put pressure on him except his six-year-old son.

Democrats in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday (Sept 24) launched a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump, accusing him of seeking Ukraine's help to smear Democratic rival Joe Biden ahead of next year's election. Trump has dismissed the inquiry as a witch hunt.

"Nobody can put pressure on me because I am the president of an independent state," Zelenskiy told reporters in New York, in comments broadcast by Russia 24 on Wednesday morning ahead of Zelenskiy's meeting with Trump. "The only one person by the way who can put pressure on me... is my son, who is six years old."