By Kanishka Singh and Gram Slattery
(Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Monday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wanted the Democrats to win the 2024 U.S. elections in which the former U.S. president faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump also said if he wins the election, he will call Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskiy and urge them to reach a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
“I think Zelenskiy is the greatest salesman in history. Every time he comes into the country, he walks away with 60 billion dollars,” Trump said in a rally in Pennsylvania. “He wants them to win this election so badly but I would do differently – I will work out peace.”
Harris’ campaign had no immediate reaction to Trump’s remarks, and Trump gave no details of his peace plan. Polls show a tight race between Trump and Harris.
Zelenskiy arrived in the United States on Sunday to attend sessions at the U.N. General Assembly and urged his partners to help achieve “a shared victory for a truly just peace.”
Washington and its allies have provided a multi-billion dollar assistance program to Ukraine since the Russian invasion began in Feb 2022, while also imposing several rounds of sanctions against Moscow.
Trump has consistently described U.S. aid to Ukraine as a waste of money and has declined to say he wants Ukraine to win. While Trump and Zelenskiy talked over the phone in July, they have not talked in person since Trump’s 2017-2021 term.
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, uprooted millions more and devastated Ukrainian towns and cities.
Putin says peace talks can begin only if Kyiv abandons swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine to Russia and drops its NATO membership ambitions. Zelenskiy has called repeatedly for a withdrawal of all Russian troops, and the restoration of Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders.
Ukraine and the West say Russia is waging an imperial-style war. Putin cast the Ukraine invasion as a defensive move against a hostile and aggressive West.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Gram Slattery in Washington; Editing by Sonali Paul and Stephen Coates)