Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was certain he will visit the White House and meet United States President Donald Trump, and has invited him to Kyiv.
“I am sure it will happen. The last time I met U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, we talked about it, and said that I would very much want my visit to America to be something special for the two countries. With some very important result for the two countries. Something beneficial for the two countries,” Zelensky said during the 56th Munich Security Conference on Saturday, when asked if he had a specific date for the White House visit.
The president said he wanted to re-start the relations with the U.S. “with a clean slate.”
“After all this Santa Barbara…about the impeachment…I want to come and start our relations with a clean slate, so that we agree and sign some contracts, agree strategic things, investment things. Let’s prepare a package of such documents and meet. So now the ball on the U.S. president’s court, but we are always happy to see them all in Ukraine. So I am ready to invite, and I am inviting, President Trump to Kyiv.”
He also commented on the blocking of U.S. military aid.
“We needed that aid, we needed a tactical win in this story, without the souring of our relations with the U.S. So, tactically is how I am thinking about Ukraine. Always. And, honestly, I’ll tell you this: sometimes I reply not how I want to, but in the way necessary for Ukraine. So, my body, my brain, my eyes belong to the Ukrainian people,” Zelensky said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he has no intention of interfering in U.S. internal affairs and elections in any way.
“I do not want to interfere in any way in the elections held by this independent nation, the United States, and I will not be doing it … Elect your own president and do not interfere in future elections of an independent Ukraine,” Zelensky said during a press marathon in Kyiv on Thursday.
“With due respect for the United States and America’s policy, we are not serving the latter’s purpose, as we are an independent country. However, we do not want to lose our relations, we wish to strengthen them instead,” Zelensky said.
Ukraine does not take sides in the U.S. domestic dispute, he said.
“We have no right to interfere in any elections in any country. We cannot back any candidates, I mean U.S. politicians,” he said.
It is a big mistake for the United States and bilateral relations to involve the Ukrainian president in these processes, Zelensky said.
Zelensky denied being acquainted and meeting with Ukrainian American businessman Sam Kislin.
“I could not tell who it was even from the photo,” he said.
Journalists asked whether Ukraine could count on U.S. President Donald Trump under the current circumstances.
“We count on support of the United States above all, including support of U.S. President Donald Trump. I’d rather not comment on what is going on in their domestic policy. It’s their domestic policy, and I do not see any change in their attitude towards us in international relations,” Zelensky said.
The problem of blocked deliveries of U.S. weapons to Ukraine has been solved, Zelensky said.
“This has nothing to do with Burisma [company],” he said.
“I do not anticipate any change [in Ukraine-U.S. relations] but if it happens, we will learn about that from Twitter,” Zelensky said jokingly.
Another informant spoke with head of the intelligence community’s internal watchdog office Michael Atkinson as part of a scandal over a telephone conversation between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, ABC News reported.
According to lawyer Mark Zaid, who represents the interests of this person, he has more specific data regarding the conversation between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine.
He turned to Atkinson to declare his intention to share this information. It is assumed that the data of this person confirm the information about the conversation previously transmitted by the first whistleblower, American media noted.
According to the report, the new informant is an employee of one of the U.S. intelligence services. Zaid noted that this person has not yet had direct contact with congressmen. Zaid also represents the interests of the first whistleblower in this case.
ABC News notes that, according to the first whistleblower, several officials of the U.S. administration have data on the telephone conversation between Trump and Zelensky.
The White House previously published a transcript of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky. The document follows that the American president in the conversation really told about the affairs of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine. However, based on the published document, it is impossible to draw an unambiguous conclusion about the pressure on Zelensky during the conversation. The president of Ukraine said earlier that Trump did not exert pressure on him.
ABC NEWS, REPORTS, TELEPHONE CONVERSATION, TRUMP, WHISTLEBLOWER
U.S. President Trump ordered the removal of the ambassador to Ukraine after months of complaints from allies outside the administration, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, that she was undermining him abroad and obstructing efforts to persuade Kyiv to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
Trump’s personal lawyer Giuliani told the newspaper that Yovanovitch was biased against the U.S. president in private conversations and prevented Ukraine from conducting an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter.
In addition, the newspaper reports that Giuliani handed over to the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a nine-page document dated March 28 containing a schedule of Biden’s business meetings in Ukraine.
The document also claimed that Yovanovitch was very close to the former vice president.
It is noted that although the U.S. Department of State presented Yovanovitch’s departure from Ukraine in May as planned, her tenure as ambassador was three months shorter than the usual three-year term.
Earlier, U.S. media reported that Trump tried in a telephone conversation on July 25 to convince Zelensky of the need to launch an investigation against Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.
An American intelligence officer complained in writing, and members of the U.S. Congress received the complaint for review. The complaint of intelligence officer statement prompted Democrats in the House of Representatives to initiate impeachment hearings against Trump.
In addition to U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Yovanovitch, democrats also requested State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent, State Department counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland appear for depositions at the Congress.
On Thursday, Trump explicitly called on Ukraine and China to launch investigations into the activities of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his companies.
U.S. President Donald Trump has explained that during a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, he talked about a probe into the case of a company related to former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in the context of Zelensky’s promise to fight against corruption in Ukraine.
“I want him to do whatever he can. This was not his fault; he wasn’t there. He’s just been here recently. But whatever he can do in terms of corruption, because the corruption is massive. Now, when Biden’s son walks away with millions of dollars from Ukraine, and he knows nothing, and they’re paying him millions of dollars, that’s corruption. When Biden’s son walks out of China with $1.5 billion in a fund. <…> I think that’s a horrible thing. I think it’s a horrible thing,” he said during a bilateral meeting with Zelensky in New York City on Wednesday, September 25.
“I know the President, and I’ve read a lot about Ukraine. I’ve read a lot about a lot of countries. He wants to stop corruption. He was elected – I think, number one – on the basis of stopping corruption, which unfortunately has plagued Ukraine. And if he could do that, he’s doing, really, the whole world a big favor. I know – and I think he’s going to be successful,” Trump emphasized.
The U.S. president also spoke about the need to fight corruption in response to Zelensky’s call to invest in Ukraine.
Zelensky told Trump about the large number of laws currently being adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which are aimed at reforming the law enforcement system to combat corruption and the economy.
Then, in a conversation with the media, Trump, recalling the scandal with deleted emails of ex-head of the Department of State and former U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and addressing Zelensky, said: “We have corruption also, Mr. President. We have a lot of corruption in our government.”
The White House on Wednesday, September 25, posted the transcript of a conversation between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that took place on July 25, 2019.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s name appears several times in the text of the document. At the same time, the document indicates that the document was compiled based on notes taken by White House employees who were present in Trump’s office during the conversation.
The Trump-Zelensky conversation has received a much attention in American media.
