Last night, the US hosted a debate between presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Komersant ukrainskyi
selected everything that was said about Ukraine.
The host began the section on the Russian-Ukrainian war and attitudes towards it with a very clear question to Donald Trump:
Do you want Ukraine to win this war?
Trump answered:
I want the war to stop. I want to save their lives. People are dying in millions, it’s much worse than your fake data.
Then the former US president traditionally talked about the money the US spends to support Ukraine:
“Look, we gave them 250 billion or more because they don’t ask Europe, which is a much bigger beneficiary than we are. They gave 150 billion less because Biden and you [Harris] didn’t have the courage to ask. like I did with NATO: hundreds of billions of dollars – either you pay it or we don’t defend you anymore.
Then he mentioned respect for himself:
I know Zelenskyy very well, and I know Putin very well. They respect me, and they don’t respect Biden. Why would they respect him? In two years, he hasn’t even called Putin. He hasn’t spoken to anyone.
He repeated the thesis about the imminent end of the war:
The war must end. I can arrange this even before I take office. When I am declared the winner, I will talk to one, I will talk to the other, I will bring them together.
According to Trump, the Biden administration missed the moment to negotiate with Putin on the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine:
“What I would have said to Putin when I left office [as US president]. I saw that he was lining up soldiers. I said: he must want to negotiate, this must be a strong position for negotiations. And Biden had no idea how to talk to him, no idea how to stop him. And now we have millions of deaths, and things are only getting worse, and it could have led to World War III.
The host did not give up, and rephrased his question to Trump: “Do you think it’s in the interests of the United States for Ukraine to win this war?” Trump also “did not fall for it” and answered the same way as before:
“I think it’s in the interest of the United States to end this war. Because we have to stop the destruction of human lives.
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Kamala Harris began her speech by accusing Trump of wanting to “give up” Ukraine:
“I think Trump is saying that he will end this war in 24 hours because he wants to ‘give it up’. But this is not about us, not about Americans.
The US Vice President went on to emphasise her diplomatic mission:
“I actually met with Zelenskyy a few days before the Russian invasion. I shared intelligence with him so that they could protect themselves. A few days later, I went to the eastern flank of NATO, to Poland and Romania. And with this work, we brought together 50 countries to help Ukraine. And thanks to our help, thanks to air defence, ammunition, artillery, Javelins and Abrams, we have achieved that Ukraine remains an independent and free country.
There is no way Trump could have achieved this, she said:
“If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv… And he would be looking at Europe. Starting with Poland. [How quickly would you surrender as a friendly favour to a dictator who would eat you for lunch?
Trump was given the opportunity to respond. He said:
Putin would be sitting in Moscow. And he would not have lost 300,000 men and women. He would be sitting in Moscow much happier than he is now.
Trump then went on to say that Putin had invaded Ukraine on a full scale three days after the last US diplomatic efforts:
“He has something the rest of us don’t: nuclear weapons. Maybe he will use it, maybe there is no such threat – no one wants to talk about it. But for your understanding, they [the Biden administration] turned around the peace talks before the war started. Three days later, he started the war. Because everything they said was weak and stupid. And he didn’t buy it. She [Harris] was an envoy. They sent her to the talks between Zelensky and Putin. And she went. And the war started three days later.
Harris responded with the traditional rhetoric that they were defending the values of freedom and democracy.
The host did not ask Harris the question he asked Trump, “Do you want Ukraine to win this war?”
Harris also did not say anything about the need for Ukraine to win.