By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump thinks it is not appropriate for him to visit Ukraine right now since he does not hold office, his campaign said on Wednesday after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged him to come.
Zelenskiy, in an interview with Axel Springer media outlets published on Tuesday, asked Trump to visit the country so he could hear the former U.S. president’s ideas for ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.
Trump’s campaign said on Wednesday there had been no formal outreach from Zelenskiy to the former president.
“There’s been no outreach from Zelenskiy, and President Trump has said publicly it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to go to Ukraine right now since he’s not Commander in Chief,” the Trump campaign said in an email.
U.S. presidential candidates often travel abroad to burnish their foreign policy credentials.
Former Republican candidates who have now dropped out, like former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, visited Ukraine during the campaign for the Republican nomination. During his first presidential run in 2016, Trump visited Mexico and met with its then-president, Enrique Pena Nieto.
Trump and hardline Republicans in Congress oppose further aid to Ukraine, with the possible exception of a loan.
He won the Republican nomination in March and will face Democratic President Joe Biden in the presidential election on Nov. 5
Trump, a longtime admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been critical of Washington’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and has said he could end the war in 24 hours if elected.
Trump told Reuters in an interview last June that the Kyiv government might have to concede some territory to Russia in order to stop the war. If he became president, everything would be subject to negotiation, he said.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Trump has privately said he could end the war by pressuring Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia.
In his comments on Tuesday, Zelenskiy said he was open to hearing Trump’s proposals but also expressed skepticism.
“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,” he said.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Ross Colvin and Jonathan Oatis)
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