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Ukrainian leader has previously cast “nasty aspersions” on the former US president
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has announced he will meet with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky on Friday in New York.
Zelensky has met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the Democrats’ candidate for the presidency in the November election. He has also sought a meeting with Trump.
“I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 at Trump Tower,” the former and possibly future US president announced at a press conference in New York City on Thursday afternoon.
Earlier in the day, Trump had posted a message from Ukraine’s deputy ambassador to the US, relaying Zelensky’s request for a meeting, to his TruthSocial platform.
“Dear Donald, I hope you’re doing well. I recall our recent phone call – it was really good,” Zelensky wrote. “All of us in Ukraine want to end this war with a just peace. And we know that without America this is impossible to achieve. That’s why we have to strive to understand each other and remain in close contact.”
“You know I always speak with great respect about everything connected to you, and that’s how it should be,” the Ukrainian actor-turned-politician wrote, adding that he would “really like for our meeting to take place.”
The request came after Trump criticized the “little nasty aspersions” Zelensky had made about him and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, in an interview published last Sunday.
At a campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump described Ukraine as “absolutely obliterated” and accused Biden and Harris of “feeding Zelensky money and munitions like no country has ever seen before.”
“We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal,” Trump said, referring to Zelensky. “Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.”
