Volodymyr Zelenskyy seeks to contain Republican backlash over US visit

Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for free

The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House

Volodymyr Zelenskyy sought to contain a Republican backlash over his visit to the US this week, praising the party’s backing for a fresh $8bn US military aid package and the bipartisan support for Ukraine’s war effort.

The Ukrainian president on Thursday expressed his gratitude to “Joe Biden, US Congress and its both parties, Republicans and Democrats, as well as the entire American people” for the aid package.

“We have always valued the strong bipartisan support in the United States and among Americans for Ukraine’s just cause of defeating Russian aggression,” he wrote on social media.

His statement came after a former president Donald Trump and Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, reacted furiously to what they described as Zelenskyy favouring the Democrats on a trip intended to persuade Washington to bolster Ukraine’s position on the battlefield before possible negotiations with Russia.

The backlash has caused consternation in Kyiv, where the president’s allies accused officials of bungling the trip which comes at a crucial moment for Ukraine, as its troops are steadily losing ground to Russian forces in the eastern Donbas region.

“It looks like the Republicans were looking for ways to create a scandal but we should have avoided giving them the opportunity,” said a former Ukrainian official. “The Republicans will still be strong in Washington. They can block everything.”

Trump on Wednesday lashed out at the Ukrainian leader, accusing him of refusing any negotiation with Russia and claiming Zelenskyy had cast “aspersions” about him. The Republican presidential candidate was unlikely to meet Zelenskyy this week, according to people familiar with the matter.

Johnson demanded the resignation of the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, who organised a visit by Zelenskyy to an armaments factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he was accompanied only by Democrats. Pennsylvania is a key swing state in November’s presidential election.

“The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference,” Johnson wrote in a letter to Zelenskyy.

The Ukrainian leader had intended to use his visit to the US to present his so-called victory plan for strengthening Ukraine’s military and diplomatic position to Biden, Trump and Kamala Harris, the vice-president and Democratic candidate.

The $8bn package unveiled by the White House comprises $2.4bn in new assistance and $5.6bn already earmarked for Ukraine. It includes a first pledge of “joint stand-off weapons” or glide bombs, which could be used for long-range strikes. Biden said it had “been a top priority of my administration to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to prevail”.

However, the package falls well short of the needs Zelenskyy is due to present to Biden later on Thursday. The US has so far rebuffed Kyiv’s repeated requests to use long-range weapons to strike targets inside Russia, a key element in his plan.

The Republican backlash over Zelenskyy’s visit to the US has triggered recriminations in Kyiv.

“Going to Scranton was a mistake,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian parliament. “The president has been let down either by someone in the embassy or in his office.”

He added: “It was a dangerous period anyway in the US. It would have been better not to have made that visit at all.”

David Arakhamia, leader of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party in parliament, played down the significance of Trump’s comments, describing them as “campaign rhetoric and manipulation, which everyone is doing”.

“I would not give them so much attention,” Arakhamia told the Financial Times. “It would scare me if such comments were made after the election.”

Arakhamia conceded that the timing of the Republican backlash was not very good. But he defended Zelenskyy’s visit, saying the president needed to press Ukraine’s case before the funding provision for the new security package expired at the end of September.

“Whatever you do you risk becoming part of the election debate,” Arakhamia said. “But we cannot afford to just sit and wait until the elections are done.”

A person close to Zelenskyy said the “optics” of his visit to Scranton looked bad in hindsight and blamed Ukraine’s ambassador for a “lapse of judgment”.

But Arakhamia defended Markarova, calling her one of Ukraine’s most effective envoys. “Why would we fire her just because Speaker Johnson doesn’t like her? It was very rude, frankly.”

Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington