Zelenskiy Quest for More Aid Gets Mired in Campaign Drama
(Bloomberg) -- Volodymyr Zelenskiy finally got his meeting with Donald Trump.
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But it came at the end of a roller-coaster week that saw the Ukrainian president caught up in the maelstrom of the US presidential campaign. The long-sought session laid bare the risks facing his quest for more American support in Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
At Trump Tower Friday, Zelenskiy stood impassively as the former president repeated his vows to bring a quick end to the war if he’s elected, something Kyiv and its allies fear could mean forced capitulation. Trump cited his “good relationship” with both Zelenskiy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, prompting the Ukrainian leader to interject that he hoped his Trump ties were better.
A visit that Zelenskiy had planned as a chance to line up more support from allies to force Russia to bring an end to the war was instead consumed by Trump’s bare-knuckle political tactics. The audience Friday was granted only after days of public belittling that culminated in the former president posting Zelenskiy’s plaintive private request for a meeting on his social media.
With no sign of a breakthrough on the battlefield as the war heads into its fourth winter, the election in its most important ally is an existential matter for Ukraine.
Even before Zelenskiy arrived at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, his trip got off to a rough start.
A visit Sunday to a factory making the kind of artillery shells his troops on the front line fire every day was meant as a gesture of Kyiv’s gratitute but triggered a political firestorm. The plant was in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, and the governor who joined the event was a top surrogate for Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House, called it “election interference” and demanded Zelenskiy fire his ambassador to Washington. Senator Ted Cruz called the Ukrainian leader “an absolute moron.”
Then there was Zelenskiy’s undiplomatic criticism of Trump and his running mate in an interview with the New Yorker. “Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how,” Zelenskiy said. His running mate Senator JD Vance — who thinks Ukraine needs to give up territory to Russia - was “too radical.”
Trump’s response was quick. In campaign speeches, he mocked Zelenskiy’s accent and accused him of making “little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president: me.” Aides signaled the hoped-for meeting with Zelenskiy wouldn’t happen.
Ukrainian officials were taken aback by the ferocity of the response. The plant visit had been arranged with help from the Pentagon. According to people familiar with the planning, Zelenskiy was expected to see only the governor and preside over the signing of a cooperation agreement, just as he had on an uneventful July stop in Utah.
What they didn’t appreciate was the sensitivity of meeting Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, a top Harris supporter, in a contested state so close to the vote.
Suddenly, as Zelenskiy was addressing leaders at the UN, his entourage was having to do damage control.
For their part, Ukrainian officials remained upbeat even as the controversy swirled. Zelenskiy pronounced the meeting “very productive” in a social media post Friday.
In a conversation the day before, the Ukrainian president “was probably a little more optimistic” about getting the support he’s seeking than he’d been earlier this year, Finland’s president Alexander Stubb told a conference later. But Stubb conceded, “there was bipartisan support but then some pushback from Donald Trump.”
It was all meant to have gone very differently. After Kyiv’s daring offensive last month took hundreds of square miles of Russian territory, upending perceptions the war had settled into a stalemate and exposing as empty Putin’s threats to retaliate, Zelenskiy was riding high.
He had come to the US hoping to line up support for his “victory plan” - a bold appeal for yet more military and diplomatic support that in Kyiv’s view will finally be enough to convince Putin that Russia cannot win the war.
President Joe Biden Thursday announced a “surge” in US military aid, ensuring another $8 billion would be released before he leaves office.
But he had little to say about Zelenskiy’s plan and gave no indication he was ready to grant Ukraine’s request to be allowed to use allied weapons for strikes deeper into Russia, something Washington fears could lead to dangerous escalation.
On Capitol Hill Thursday, the adulation that had greeted Zelenskiy’s visits early in the war was nowhere to be seen. With Congress not in session, fewer lawmakers turned out to meet him. With elections looming, there were broad pledges of support but little discussion of the prospects for aid next year.
The way Kyiv sees it, a win for Harris in November means predictability and the sense that the US will continue to support its war effort. “The United States supports Ukraine not out of charity, but because it is in our strategic interest,” she told Zelenskiy Thursday.
But if Trump is in the White House, things can either improve or get much worse, according to a person familiar with Ukrainian leadership’s thinking.
It was the risk of the latter scenario that hung over the meeting Friday.
Trump had sidestepped a question on whether he wanted Kyiv to prevail in the conflict in a debate. In speeches, he spoke of Russia’s past war victories and the destruction Ukraine had suffered, echoing Kremlin talking points.
Though Trump later called it “great” in a social media post, the meeting Friday had no shortage of awkward moments. As Trump bounced between describing Ukraine as a wasteland of destruction but also beautiful, Zelenskiy cut in with a smile and an invitation to come visit.
Trump twice conceded the meeting was mostly for show since he was out of power - starting the answer to a question about what he hoped to accomplish with a quick “nothing” - and when another reporter asked why the meeting was happening, the pair struggled to decide who should answer.
Asked after the hour-long meeting Friday whether he’d changed his mind about how to end the war, Trump had little reassurance for Zelenskiy.
“I learned a lot but I think I haven’t changed from the standpoint that we both want to see this end and we both want to see a fair deal made,” Trump told Fox News. “I have my own ideas, and I’m sure the president definitely has his own ideas.”
--With assistance from Courtney McBride, Daniel Flatley, Natalia Drozdiak, Billy House and Kati Pohjanpalo.
(Updates with Trump post in 25th paragraph (an earlier version of this story was corrected to reflect proper time element in second deck and fifth paragraph)
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