Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that he did not fear a new presidency by Donald Trump, if the Republican wins the US presidential election in November, despite the uncertainties that his election would bring about regarding the sustainability of Washington’s support for kyiv.
“I think that if Donald Trump becomes president, we will work together. I am not afraid,” Zelensky said at a news conference in kyiv.
A possible victory for Donald Trump in the presidential election on November 5th would cast great doubt on the sustainability of American financial and military support for Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion launched in February 2022.
The Republican candidate has suggested that he would end the conflict very quickly if he returned to the White House, raising the risk that kyiv would find itself forced to negotiate with Moscow from a disadvantageous position.
Almost 20% of Ukrainian territory is still occupied by Russia.
But Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that he had the support of a large part of the Republican camp in the United States, where he recently met with many elected officials.
“I want to tell you that the majority of the Republican Party supports Ukraine and the Ukrainian people,” he told reporters.
The Ukrainian president also noted that some Republican leaders had “more right-wing, more radical positions” than Donald Trump.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he took Donald Trump’s “desire to stop the war in Ukraine” “very seriously”, while the Democratic camp regularly attacks the former American president on his positions deemed complacent towards Russia.
Mr Zelensky and Mr Trump also have a long history. The American billionaire was the target of impeachment proceedings in the United States at the end of his term in 2019-2020 for having tried to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of Joe Biden, his rival for the 2020 presidential election.
To see in video