Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on Tuesday that he could not foresee Donald Trump's actions if he regains the U.S. presidency in November, but emphasized that the entire world, including Russian leader Vladimir Putin, is watching the election outcome closely.
Speaking in Washington during this week's NATO summit, Zelenskyy expressed hope that Trump would not abandon the 75-year-old NATO alliance and that the U.S. would continue supporting Ukraine in its defense against Russia's ongoing invasion.
"I don't know him very well," Zelenskyy said of Trump, adding he had "good meetings" with him during Trump's first presidency but said that was before Russia's 2022 invasion.
"I can't tell you what he will do if he becomes president of the United States. I don't know."
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the U.S. presidential election in November, has frequently criticized the size of U.S. military support for Ukraine – some $60 billion since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 – and called Zelenskyy "the greatest salesman ever."
Two of his national security advisers have presented Trump with a plan to end U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless it opens talks with Russia to end the conflict.
Trump's dealings with Zelenskyy became the subject of his first impeachment as president by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019. He was accused of pressing Zelenskyy to help smear Joe Biden in return for aid but was acquitted by the Senate in 2020.
On policy toward NATO, Trump has said he would "encourage" Russia to do "whatever the hell they want" to any alliance member that did not spend enough on defense and he would not defend them. The NATO charter obliges members to come to the defense of those who are attacked.
Zelenskyy urged U.S. political leaders on Tuesday not to wait for the outcome of America's November presidential election to move forcefully to aid his country, as he called for fewer restrictions on the use of U.S. weaponry.
"Everyone is waiting for November. Americans are waiting for November, in Europe, Middle East, in the Pacific, the whole world is looking towards November and, truly speaking, Putin awaits November too," Zelenskyy said.
"It is time to step out of the shadows, to make strong decisions ... to act and not to wait for November or any other month."
Earlier on Tuesday, President Joe Biden pledged to forcefully defend Ukraine at the NATO summit.
But Biden, 81, is reeling from 12 days of withering questions about his fitness for office as some of his fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill and campaign donors fear that he will lose the election after a halting debate performance on June 27.
Trump is leading Biden by 2.1 percentage points nationally, according to a polling average maintained by the website FiveThirtyEight.
Asked about Putin's views of Biden and Trump, Zelenskyy said cautiously: "Biden and Trump are very different. But they are supportive of democracy. And that's why I think Putin will hate both of them."
Zelenskyy's choice of venue, the Ronald Reagan Institute, could be another sign of Ukraine's effort to reach out to Republicans.
Andrew Weiss at the Carnegie Endowment think tank said Kyiv has been trying to build "as many bridges to the Republican mainstream establishment as possible."
"There's a process underway in Kyiv of trying to think through the implications of a possible Trump return to the White House," Weiss said.
Zelenskyy was introduced by top U.S. Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, who lauded the Ukrainian leader and strongly supported greater assistance to Kyiv.
"They need the tools to defend themselves to impose costs on their aggressors and to negotiate from positions of strength," McConnell said.
