Zelenskyy says the world cannot wait until the US election in November to take action to repel Putin
Associated PressWASHINGTON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that decisive action must be taken before the U.S. presidential election in November to repel Russia’s offensive against his country, using an address on the sidelines of the NATO summit to press for greater support during a pivotal but tumultuous stretch in America’s political calendar. The Ukrainian leader sought to minimize the potential fallout of a Donald Trump victory, who is a NATO skeptic and has criticized the Biden administration’s support for Kyiv during Russia’s war in Ukraine. He noted, however, that they did not go through the Russia-Ukraine war together, and only during a shared experience like that can one understand “if you can count on somebody or not.” As president, Trump was impeached in late 2019 by the House of Representatives after pressuring Zelenskyy to announce an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter, while withholding $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. At a rally Tuesday night in Florida, Trump again sought to take credit for the number of NATO member countries now meeting defense spending targets, saying that when he first addressed NATO members as president, “nobody was paying.” The striking increase, however, came only after the Ukraine war began and when Biden was president.