By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Vice President Kamala Harris pledged support for Ukraine on Thursday and – in a veiled reference to Donald Trump, her U.S. election rival – said those who would have Ukraine swap land for peace with Russia were supporting “proposals of surrender.”
Harris, the Democratic candidate for president, spoke alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House, a day after Trump assailed him for not making a deal with Russia that Trump said could have ended the war.
The vice president said she would work to ensure Ukraine prevails in the war, now in its third year, and achieves a just peace. She then criticized former President Trump, her Republican rival in the Nov. 5 election, without naming him.
Trump later said he would meet Zelenskiy on Friday morning at Trump Tower in New York. While Trump and Zelenskiy spoke by phone in July, they have not met in person since Trump’s presidential term ended in 2021.
She said “there are some” in the United States who would force Ukraine to give up large parts of its territory and abandon its security relationships with other nations.
“These proposals are the same as those of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable,” she said.
Trump has said U.S. aid to Ukraine is a waste of money and has declined to say whether he wants Ukraine to win.
This week Trump said the U.S. gives “billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal: Zelenskiy” and added: “There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn’t have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated.”
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Howard Goller)
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