A Trump campaign official denied Wednesday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has privately invited the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee to visit the war-torn country.
“There’s been no outreach [from Zelensky],” the official told The Post, noting that the 77-year-old former president feels it “wouldn’t be appropriate for him to go to Ukraine right now since he’s not commander in chief.”
Zelensky recently told Axel Springer media outlets that Trump has expressed interest in accepting an invite to visit Ukraine.
“We conveyed the messages and the context through the appropriate people,” Zelensky claimed.
“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.
For months, Zelensky has been publicly offering to give Trump a tour of the front lines of his country’s war with Russia, to show him 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.
“I have great respect for President Zelenskyy, but think it would be inappropriate to go to Ukraine at this time,” Trump told Newsmax last November, in response to one of Zelensky’s invites made during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“The Biden administration is currently dealing with him, and I would not want to create a conflict of interest,” Trump added.
The former president has recently argued that Congress shouldn’t approve additional aid to Ukraine “unless it is done as a loan,” and insists that if elected to a second term in the White House he would end the war “within 24 hours.”
