Trump to meet Zelensky after tensions over Ukraine war

NEW YORK - Donald Trump and Mr Volodymyr Zelensky will sit down for a potentially fractious meeting on Sept 27, following a series of scathing attacks by the White House hopeful on the Ukrainian President’s handling of the conflict with Russia.

Mr Zelensky sat down a day earlier with Trump’s US election rival Kamala Harris, as well as President Joe Biden, who

both pledged their support

for Kyiv’s war, which has largely been bankrolled by the United States.

Trump, who this week accused Mr Zelensky of refusing to “make a deal” to end the conflict, said the pair will meet at around 9.45am local time at his Trump Tower skyscraper in New York.

US media had earlier reported the meeting would not go ahead after Trump was offended by Mr Zelensky’s comments to The New Yorker magazine, in which he said that the Republican “doesn’t really know how to stop the war”.

Trump struck back at a campaign rally in North Carolina on Sept 25, saying: “We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal, Zelensky.”

Mr Zelensky is in the United States this week participating in the UN General Assembly in New York.

He is also looking to shore up support for his country’s war effort as it struggles on the battlefield in the third year of Moscow’s invasion.

Row with Trump

The Ukrainian leader presented a so-called “victory” plan to Mr Biden and Ms Harris at the White House on Sept 26, with Mr Biden announcing a new military aid package worth nearly US$8 billion (S$10.2 billion) for Kyiv.

Standing with Mr Zelensky at her side, Ms Harris did not mention Trump by name but said there were “some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory”.

Mr Biden pledged in a separate meeting with Mr Zelensky that “Russia will not prevail” in the war it

launched in February 2022

.

Dressed in his trademark military-style outfit, Mr Zelensky replied that “we deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side by side”.

However, his visit has been clouded by the row with Trump which underscored how November’s US election could upend the support that Ukraine receives from its biggest backer.

Trump has long been critical of the billions of dollars in US support for Ukraine.

He has echoed many of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s talking points, saying at a rally earlier this week that Ukraine could not win as Russia “beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon, that’s what they do”.

Republicans have also been livid after Mr Zelensky visited an arms factory in Mr Biden’s hometown in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, accusing the Ukrainian ambassador of organising a partisan political event and calling for her to be sacked.

When Trump was president, he also asked Mr Zelensky for potentially damaging political material on Mr Biden ahead of the 2020 election – which led to the first of the Republican’s two impeachments. AFP