By MICHELLE L. PRICE, ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and LISA MASCARO
NEW YORK (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met face-to-face with Donald Trump on Friday with public tensions rising between the two over Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion and in the midst of the U.S. presidential election.
“We both want to see this end, and we both want to see a fair deal made,” Trump told Fox News while standing alongside Zelenskyy after meeting for 40 minutes. “The president wants it to end, and he wants it to end as quickly as possible. He wants a fair transaction to take place.”
Zelenskyy said the war shouldn’t have started and added that there needs to be pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin and peace for the families of those killed.
“We need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war. He is in our territory. That’s most important to understand. He is in our territory.”
The meeting came at a critical time in the Russia-Ukraine war as Election Day nears in the U.S. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, have taken sharply different approaches to Ukraine. Zelenskyy has been eager to keep good relations with the United States, his country’s largest provider of arms and money for the war. But the future of that support would be in doubt if Trump were to win the election.
Trump, who has touted his good relationship with Putin and called the Russian leader “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine, has for months criticized U.S. support for Ukraine and derided Zelenskyy as a “salesman” for persuading Washington to provide weapons and funding to his military as it tries to fend off Moscow. On Friday, Trump brought up his first impeachment, which Democrats in Congress pursued after he asked Zelenskyy for a “favor” — that he investigate Joe Biden, now the president, and Biden’s son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
At the time Trump asked for the “favor,” he was…
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