WASHINGTON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is visiting Washington on Thursday as U.S. support for his country’s fight against Russia faces a partisan reckoning in this year’s presidential election.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has pledged to continue sending military assistance to Ukraine if she’s elected. She’ll have her own meeting with Zelenskyy after the Ukrainian leader sits down with President Joe Biden, who announced billions of dollars more in missiles, drones, ammunition and other supplies. The weapons include a new shipment of glide bombs that can be deployed from Western fighter jets, increasing their strike range.
“The United States will provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war,” Biden said in a statement, pledging to ensure that all approved funding is disbursed before he leaves office. He also said he would convene a meeting with other world leaders focused on Ukraine’s defense during a visit to Germany next month.
However, Zelenskyy’s tumultuous relationship with former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, continued to deteriorate this week. Instead of meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump has criticized him. As for U.S. support for Ukraine, Trump complained that “we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal” to end the war. His message dovetails with Russian propaganda that claims intransigence by Kyiv — not aggression from Moscow — has prolonged the bloodshed.
It’s the most politically treacherous landscape that Zelenskyy has encountered in Washington since Russia invaded nearly three years ago. Ukrainian officials are anxious to maintain good relations with whoever becomes the next president of the United States, which is its biggest and most important provider of arms, money and other support.
But the effort risks slipping into the political blender of the presidential campaign, polarizing the discussion around a war that used to be a bipartisan cause célèbre in Washington. Zelenskyy is eager to secure as much leverage as possible before Biden leaves office — including acquiescence to fire long-range Western weapons deeper into Russia — as a hedge against the possibility that American support erodes after the election.
The latest round of sniping started on Sunday, when The New Yorker published an interview with Zelenskyy in which he criticized JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, as “too radical” for suggesting that Ukraine needs to give up some territory to end the war. Zelenskyy also dismissed Trump’s boasts that he could quickly negotiate a solution, saying “my feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how.”
On the same day, Zelenskyy toured a Pennsylvania factory producing munitions for the war. He was joined by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, a top surrogate for Harris, and Republicans criticized the visit as a political stunt in a political battleground state.
House Speaker Mike Johnson demanded that Zelenskyy fire the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., alleging that the tour was “designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference.”
Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, won’t meet with Zelenskyy on Thursday when he makes the rounds on Capitol Hill before heading to the White House. However, Zelenskyy is expected to talk with some House members, including the Republican chairs of several committees. He’s also scheduled to meet with senators in a bipartisan session hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Zelenskyy’s trip to Washington coincides with the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where the Ukrainian leader spoke on Wednesday. Last week, Trump said he would “probably” meet with Zelenskyy while he was in the U.S., but a senior campaign official said there was never a meeting on the books.
The official, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations, said Trump had told Zelenskyy back in July that it would probably be better not to sit down together until after the election. A Zelenskyy aide did not respond to questions about the potential meeting.
Trump was impeached during his first term over asking Zelenskyy for help investigating Biden, then a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, at a time when the Ukrainian leader was seeking support from Washington.
Now there are fears that Trump would cut off or add strings to U.S. military assistance if he returned to the White House. Trump has also spoken admiringly about Russian President Vladimir Putin, and this week he praised Russia’s record of winning wars.
Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump is not wrong to want a negotiated end to the war. However, he said, Trump risks undermining Ukraine by enabling Putin to make more gains on the battlefield.
“Neither Ukraine nor Russia is going to win this war, and the sooner that the parties try to end this, the better,” Kupchan said. “Where Trump goes off course, and where Biden and Harris have a much stronger argument, is that we get to that point not by throwing Ukraine under the bus but by giving them sufficient support so they can block further Russian aggression.”
Zelenskyy can expect a far different tone from Harris, who met with him in Munich just days before Russia invaded.
During her debate with Trump earlier this month, Harris expressed pride in U.S. support for Ukraine’s “righteous defense.”
“If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now,” she said.
