Biden vows ‘Russia will not prevail’ as Ukraine’s Zelensky receives new military aid during US visit – News18

US President Joe Biden told Volodymyr Zelensky that “Russia will not prevail” as he hosted the Ukrainian president at the White House on Thursday for talks on Kiev’s “victory plan” against Moscow.

“Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail and we will continue to stand by you every step of the way,” Biden said as he welcomed Zelensky, who wore his trademark military fatigues, into the Oval Office. Zelensky presented the so-called “victory” plan to President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris at the White House, with Biden announcing a new military aid package worth nearly $8 billion for struggling Kiev.

A policy of “surrender” towards Ukraine

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris criticized her US election rival Donald Trump’s “capitulation” policy on Ukraine, while the Republican said he would meet with Ukraine’s president despite the bitter row over the war with Russia. Standing with Zelensky by her side, Harris did not mention Trump by name but said there were “some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory.”

“These proposals are the same as those of (President Vladimir) Putin. And let’s be clear, they are not peace proposals. Instead, they are offers of surrender,” she said, referring to the Russian leader. During a separate Oval Office meeting with Zelensky, Biden promised that “Russia will not prevail” in the war that began in February 2022. “Ukraine will prevail and we will continue to stand by you every step of the way,” he said Biden.

Dressed in his trademark military-style clothing, Zelensky responded that “we deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America stood side by side.” But Zelensky is navigating the turbulent waters of the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election, which could sink the steady support he has received from Washington over the past two and a half years.

– “Make a Deal” –

Trump, who has long criticized billions of dollars in US aid to Ukraine, accused Zelensky ahead of the visit of refusing to cut a deal with Moscow. But after the scandal appeared to derail any meeting, Trump announced he would hold talks with Zelensky at Trump Tower in New York on Friday.

“President Zelensky has asked to meet with me and I will meet with him tomorrow morning around 9:45,” the Republican told reporters in New York. Trump also reiterated his long-standing claim that he would quickly end a peace deal – which Kiev fears would involve giving up land that Moscow has already seized.

“I believe that I will be able to make a deal between President Putin and President Zelensky, and quite quickly,” he said. He also suggested he was unhappy with Zelensky’s recent comments to The New Yorker magazine, in which the Ukrainian leader said he believed Trump “really doesn’t know how to stop the war.”

Republicans were also furious after Zelensky visited an arms factory in Biden’s hometown in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, accusing the Ukrainian ambassador of organizing a partisan political event and calling for her to be fired.

– “They defeated Napoleon” –

Trump echoed many of Putin’s, telling a rally earlier this week that Ukraine could not win because Russia “beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon, that’s what they’re doing.” When Trump was president, he also asked Zelensky for potentially damaging political material on Biden ahead of the 2020 election — leading to the Republican’s first of two impeachments.

Biden appears to be doing what he can to shore up Trump’s support for Ukraine as it faces an increasingly difficult battleground situation against Russia. He pledged nearly $8 billion in military aid on Thursday to “win this war,” including $5.5 billion that must be approved before a deadline at the end of the U.S. fiscal year on Monday.

Biden, whose term expires in January, also convened a summit of allies in Germany in October. However, the White House played down Zelensky’s hopes of getting permission to launch long-range Western missiles into Russian territory. “I don’t expect any new announcements,” spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre said.

Zelensky earlier visited the US Congress and made a defiant address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday. Zelensky’s visit prompted another nuke rattle from Moscow. On Wednesday, Putin announced plans to expand Moscow’s rules on the use of its nuclear weapons in the event of a “large-scale” air strike.

(This story was not edited by News18 staff and was published by a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)