Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “worries” that Donald Trump will try to dictate an end to the war with Russia in the event that he defeats President Joe Biden in the 2024 elections.
“If his idea — which no one has heard about — if his idea will not work for us, for our people, then he will do everything to achieve the implementation of his idea anyway,” Zelensky said of Trump, according to a Ukrainian media outlet. “And this is what worries me a little.”
Zelensky reiterated his invitation for Trump to visit Kyiv, which the wartime leader first extended in November after the former U.S. president declared that he could end the conflict in a single day if he is reelected. Trump declined at the time, but his front-runner status in the Republican presidential primary contest, reinforced by the results of the Iowa caucuses this week, has ensured that the former president would hardly ever be absent from the minds of Ukrainian policymakers.
“He will make decisions on his own,” Zelensky fretted. “I am not even talking about Russia, but without both sides, without us.”
Zelensky has had a fraught relationship with Trump since his victory in the 2019 Ukrainian elections. The revelation that Trump urged him to cooperate with Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to accuse Biden of corruption — an appeal for “a favor” that Trump’s team paired with a hold on military assistance to Ukraine — created a trans-Atlantic uproar that led first to the resignation of then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s point man for Ukraine, and then Trump’s first impeachment.
Trump’s victory in the Iowa caucuses unfolded against the backdrop of a political impasse in Washington, D.C., where House Republicans have refused to authorize additional aid to Ukraine unless President Joe Biden agrees to their preferred plans to address the border crisis. The two sides have been negotiating a deal, but Trump intervened Thursday to discourage any compromise.
“I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions & Millions of people, many from parts unknown, into our once great, but soon to be great again, Country!” Trump posted on social media.
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Zelensky, for his part, noted that elected officials in the United States typically credit Ukraine with shielding NATO from Russian aggression.
“Mostly, 99.9%, they are on my side,” Zelensky said. “They helped a lot [to help Ukraine survive Russia’s initial invasion]. And I think they could help us more to win.”