Harris criticizes Ukraine’s proposals to cede territory to Russia during Zelensky’s meeting

WASHINGTON (AP) — With an American support for Ukraine at a partisan crossroads, Vice President Kamala Harris sharply criticized suggestions that Kiev gave up territory in the name of peace with Moscow, calling it “dangerous and unacceptable.”

The Democratic presidential candidate spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, commenting on veiled criticism of the Republican candidate Donald Trump’s pressure on Ukraine quickly conclude an agreement to end the war.

“These are not peace proposals,” Harris said. “Instead, these are proposals of surrender.”

Her comments were a reminder of how high the stakes are for the war effort in this year’s election. Trump, for his part, criticized U.S. aid to Ukraine, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and blamed Zelensky for the ongoing bloodshed.

Trump said he would meet with Zelensky on Friday in New York after days of questions about whether the two leaders would sit down together. He rejected Harris’ criticism and insisted he only wanted to stop the “ongoing horror.”

Asked whether Ukraine should give up the territory, Trump replied “we’ll see what happens” and “we need peace.”

Before announcing the meeting with Zelensky, Trump posted on social media an alleged message from the Ukrainian leader requesting a meeting. The message, which has not been confirmed by Ukrainian authorities, said that “we must strive for mutual understanding.”

The decision to publicly release the apparently private correspondence, regardless of its benign content, was a reminder of the tension that has been growing between Trump and Zelensky.

That made a very different impression than Harris made on Thursday, when she adopted a defense of Ukraine and outlined a broader foreign policy vision rooted in “international order, rules and norms.” Harris rejected calls for the United States to withdraw from its global role and warned that potential aggressors could be emboldened if Putin prevails.

“The United States supports Ukraine not for charitable reasons, but because it is in our strategic interest,” Harris said.

Zelensky was in Washington to present to the White House and Congress his plans to end the war by increasing Ukraine’s chances on the battlefield and its ultimate influence at the negotiating table. He is pushing for the lifting of restrictions on the use of Western long-range weapons to strike targets deeper in Russian territory.

There was no visible movement on this matter during Zelensky’s visit. However, Mr. President Joe Biden announced billions of dollars more in missiles, drones, ammunition and other supplies. The weapons include an additional Patriot missile defense battery and a new shipment of glide bombs that can be launched from Western fighters, extending their striking range.

Biden pledged to disburse all approved funds before leaving office and said he would convene a meeting with other world leaders focusing on Ukraine’s defense during your next visit to Germany.

“We stand with Ukraine now and in the future,” Biden said alongside Zelensky in the Oval Office. “Russia will not win. Ukraine will win.”

Ukrainian officials are keen to maintain good relations with whoever becomes the next president of the United States, which is their largest and most important supplier of weapons, money and other support. But the effort risks falling into the political blender of the presidential campaign, polarizing the discussion around the war that was once a bipartisan event in Washington.

About two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the United States has an obligation to help Ukraine, compared with one-third of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, according to Pew Research Center poll was carried out in July.

Americans are also divided over which presidential candidate would handle the war better. AP-NORC poll from August found that about a third of Americans said they trusted Harris more, while a similar percentage said the same about Trump.

On Thursday, Zelensky found bipartisan support when he visited the Capitol, where he was greeted by the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Zelensky asked for the use of long-range weapons such as British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles or U.S. ATACMS for “maximum benefit to bringing Putin to the table” and strengthening Ukraine’s negotiating position .

“If we don’t make this fundamental choice this week, I think the consequences for Ukraine will be dire,” Graham said.

Administration officials were there skeptical about Zelensky’s requestbelieving that weapons may provide limited benefits but increase the risk of conflict escalation. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said senators gave Zelenskiy advice on how to persuade Biden to loosen restrictions.

Rep. Jim Himes, another Connecticut Democrat and a ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Zelensky wanted “more, faster.”

“He was politely frustrated,” Himes said, and specifically demanded more Patriot missile defense systems as Russia escalated attacks on Ukrainian cities and the power grid ahead of winter.

Zelensky faces a much more tense relationship with Trump. The final sniper round began on Sunday when The New Yorker published the interview with Zelensky, in which he criticized JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, as “too radical” for suggesting that Ukraine must give up some territory to end the war. Zelensky also rejected Trump’s boasts that he could quickly negotiate a solution, saying: “I get the impression that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop a war, even if he thinks he knows how to do it.”

the same day Zelensky visited a factory in Pennsylvania producing ammunition for war. He was joined by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, Harris’s top deputy, and Republicans criticized the visit as a political battleground stunt.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson demanded that Zelensky be fired ambassador of Ukraine to the USAmaintaining that the trip “was intended to help Democrats and clearly constitutes election interference.” The Louisiana Republican did not appear at any of the lawmakers’ meetings with Zelensky on Thursday.

Trump complained this week that Zelensky was “making nasty little smears about your favorite president, me.” He also described the Ukrainian leader as “the greatest salesman on Earth” for U.S. support and complained that “we are still giving billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal” to end the war. Trump’s message fits with Russian propaganda, which claims that Kiev’s intransigence – and not Moscow’s aggression – prolonged the bloodshed.

Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Zelensky is in a “no-win situation” in which he “can’t even visit a U.S. arms manufacturer to say thank you without being attacked.” ”

Trump was impeached during his first term for asking Zelensky to help investigate Biden, then the Democratic presidential candidate, at a time when the Ukrainian leader was seeking support from Washington. Now there are fears that Trump will cut or add new conditions to US military aid if he returns to the White House.

Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump is not wrong to want a negotiated end to the war. But he said Trump risks weakening Ukraine by enabling Putin to make greater gains on the battlefield.

“Neither Ukraine nor Russia will win this war, and the sooner the sides try to end it, the better,” Kupchan said. “Trump is veering off course and where Biden and Harris have a much stronger case, we get to that point not by throwing Ukraine under the bus, but by giving it enough support to be able to block further Russian aggression.”

___ Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Michelle Price in New York and Ellen Knickmeyer, Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick, Kevin Freking, Steven Groves and Amelia Thomson-Deveaux in Washington contributed to this report.