Former President Donald Trump indicated he believes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is rooting for Vice President Kamala Harris to win the election so he can get more funding for his country’s war against Russia.
Trump’s remarks at a Pennsylvania rally on Monday evening came after Zelensky toured a Pennsylvania factory supplying ammunition for Ukraine.
“I see Zelensky is here,” the former president told the crowd in Indiana, Pennsylvania. “I think Zelensky is the greatest salesman in history. Every time he comes into the country, he walks away with $60 billion dollars. Billion! Walks in with $60 billion dollars.”
Trump continued to tell supporters that Zelensky “wants them … he wants them to win this election so badly,” as he referenced the Ukrainian leader’s alleged bias toward Harris.
The former president indicated that while he would immediately end the war in Ukraine and “make a deal” in the region if he was elected, Harris would only continue the Biden administration’s “incompetent” policies that he said fueled the war.
“We have an incompetent leader in Biden, and we have somebody who’s worse in this new one that they threw into the ring,” Trump said.
Zelensky commented on the importance of Pennsylvania during his visit to the state on Sunday.
“Scranton, Pennsylvania. I visited a plant that manufactures 155 mm artillery shells. Now, for our warriors who are defending not only our country, not only Ukraine, the plant will be ramping up production,” Zelensky said in a post to X on Sunday. “I began my visit to the United States by expressing my gratitude to all the employees at the plant and by reaching agreements to expand cooperation between Pennsylvania and our Zaporizhzhia.”
Scranton, Pennsylvania. I visited a plant that manufactures 155 mm artillery shells. Now, for our warriors who are defending not only our country, not only Ukraine, the plant will be ramping up production.
I began my visit to the United States by expressing my gratitude to all… pic.twitter.com/OXnvqHclkM
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 22, 2024
The U.S. has allocated billions of dollars to Zelensky’s fight against Russia. Following Zelensky’s visit to the U.S. in August of 2021, the Biden administration announced it would provide $60 million in a security assistance package, $45 million in humanitarian assistance, and $12.8 million in COVID-related assistance. It also announced plans to allocate over $463 million to the country for programs focused on democracy, human rights, local governance and decentralization, privatization, and judicial reform.
Zelensky’s address to a joint session of Congress in December 2022 coincided with Biden’s announcement that the U.S. would send Ukraine $1.85 billion in additional military assistance, including a transfer of the Patriot Air Defense System. The following September, the Ukrainian leader once again descended on Washington, D.C., with the Department of Justice declaring a new aid package valued at up to $325 million for the country.
Weeks prior to the announcement, the Biden administration said it would send an additional $90.5 million in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. Following Zelensky’s visit to the Capitol in July of this year, the Department of Defense said the Presidential Drawdown Authority package, worth $225 million, would help expand Ukraine’s military arsenal.
The war between the two countries began when Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022. Trump, on Monday, said he could have prevented the invasion, repeating a claim he has made many times on the campaign trail, though without providing a reasoning why.
“That should have never happened. It would have never happened if I was president. And you know what? It didn’t happen,” he told Pennsylvanians. “I said, ‘Don’t do it, Vladimir,’” he said.
He promised the battleground state he’d swiftly negotiate a deal to end the Ukrainian war “if I win the election.”
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“The first thing I’m going to do is call up Zelensky and call up President Putin and I’m going to say, you got to make a deal,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently appeared to endorse Harris, though the country’s foreign minister later claimed he was joking. Zelensky has not endorsed a presidential candidate ahead of November. However, he has criticized Trump’s goal of ending the Ukraninian war in 24 hours if elected as “not very real.”
