Ukraine’s Zelensky Used U.S. Military Assets To Campaign For Harris in Pennsylvania
By: Breccan F. Thies
September 23, 2024
5 min read
Zelensky’s visit with Harris surrogates in Pennsylvania comes one day after The New Yorker published an interview in which he criticized Trump and Vance.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to use U.S. military assets to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris on a visit to battleground state Pennsylvania on Monday.
On another trip to ask the U.S. government for money and munitions, Zelensky toured a Pennsylvania ammunition plant with Gov. Josh Shapiro, a prominent Kamala Harris surrogate, and other Democrats, including Sen. Bob Casey. Zelensky arrived in Scranton, Pennsylvania (President Joe Biden’s oft-referenced birthplace), aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17, images of which he used to advertise his visit. In a message recorded from the inside the aircraft, Zelensky noted, “This fall will determine what’s next in this war.”
“Zelensky is in Pennsylvania today, signing bombs with Gov. Shapiro. Zelensky is also attacking J.D. Vance in the biggest, most important battleground state in the country during an election year,” Sean Parnell, former Pennsylvania Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, said at a Trump rally Monday. “Folks, if that ain’t foreign election interference, I don’t know what is.”
Notably, Zelensky’s trip came the day after The New Yorker published an interview in which he criticized former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio. Zelensky took issue with Trump’s debate response about the war in Ukraine, in which the Republican said he wanted the war to end.
“Trump makes political statements in his election campaign,” Zelensky said. “My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how,” Zelensky added [emphasis original]. “With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it the less you understand. I’ve seen many leaders who were convinced they knew how to end it tomorrow, and as they waded deeper into it, they realized it’s not that simple.”
The Ukrainian leader also called Vance “too radical,” saying his plan to end the war with Russia is “just sloganeering.”
“For us, these are dangerous signals, coming as they do from a potential Vice-President. I should say that it hasn’t been like this with Trump,” Zelensky said.
“I don’t take Vance’s words seriously, because, if this were a plan, then America is headed for global conflict,” he continued, comparing a negotiation with Russia to appeasement of Adolph Hitler prior to World War II.