Former President Donald Trump has expressed interest in visiting war-torn Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has formally extended an invitation to the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee.
For months now, Zelensky has been publicly offering to give the 77-year-old former president a tour of the front lines of his country’s war with Russia, in an effort to show him of the realities of the more than two-year-long conflict and with the hope that it leads to more military aid to Ukraine should Trump reclaim the White House.
“We conveyed the messages and the context through the appropriate people,” Zelensky said in an interview with Axel Springer media outlets, the parent company of Politico.
“We said that we would like Donald Trump to come to Ukraine, see everything with his own eyes and draw his own conclusions. In any case, I am ready to meet him and discuss the issue,” he added.
The Ukrainian president noted that Trump has conveyed his interest in accepting the invite, but a date for a potential visit has not been locked down.
The Trump campaign did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Trump has recently argued that Congress shouldn’t approve additional aid to Ukraine “unless it is done as a loan.”
The former president has also insisted that if elected to a second term in the White House he would end the conflict “within 24 hours” – a boast light on details.
The Trump campaign vehemently denied a report in the Washington Post earlier this month that alleged the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee has been workshopping a plan that would see Ukraine give up Crimea and the Donbas region to Russia in exchange for a cease-fire.
Zelensky has repeatedly stated that his nation would not surrender any of its land to the invading Russian forces.
“If the deal is that we just give up our territories, and that’s the idea behind it, then it’s a very primitive idea,” Zelensky told Axel Springer media outlets.
“I need very strong arguments. I don’t need a fantastic idea, I need a real idea, because people’s lives are at stake.”
