Ukraine's Zelensky to present 'victory plan' to Biden and Harris

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00:00The US President Joe Biden has today announced a surge in assistance to Ukraine, including

00:06nearly $8 billion in military aid. The cash injection comes as President Zelensky is in

00:12Washington. He's due to meet Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the coming hours.

00:18And during their sit down, Zelensky is expected to present his so-called victory plan to the

00:24White House designed to end the war with Russia.

00:28Ketivan Gorgiastani, our foreign editor, is with me now. Ketivan, first of all, how significant

00:32is it that there's this new cash injection for Ukraine?

00:35Well, obviously, the amount, $8 billion, and the symbolic dates, just hours before Joe

00:42Biden is set to meet with Zelensky, is significant. But another thing that is very interesting

00:47is one of the lines in the statement put out by the White House announcing this cash injection.

00:54Joe Biden saying, I have directed the Department of Defense to allocate all of its remaining

00:59security assistance funding that has been appropriated for Ukraine by the end of my

01:04term in office. Really giving the idea that for Joe Biden right now, it's give as much

01:10money to Ukraine as possible, as much military aid as possible while he still can, because

01:16of course, there is that November 5th election in the United States. And the fact is that

01:21there is a very real possibility that it will be Donald Trump in the White House come next

01:26January, and not Kamala Harris, who would have been seen as someone who will simply

01:31continue the sort of policies that we've seen from Joe Biden in supporting Ukraine. Zelensky,

01:37of course, has already thanked the United States for this latest package of military

01:42assistance. But his meeting with Joe Biden, and then followed up by a meeting with Kamala

01:48Harris, has two other goals. You mentioned one of them, which is to present that victory

01:55plan both to Joe Biden and to Kamala Harris. But it's also to continue his push for those

02:01long-range weapons, and most importantly, for the green light by Joe Biden to use these

02:07long-range weapons to strike deep within the territory of Russia, something Joe Biden has

02:13so far been reluctant to do, despite pressure from the Ukrainians, from some Western allies,

02:20for fear in part of escalation with Russia, which brings us to something that the Russians

02:26said just recently about this new positioning on their nuclear doctrine, where basically

02:35the Kremlin was opening the door for a potential nuclear response to a conventional attack

02:41on its soil by any country with the support of powers that have the nuclear weapon, basically

02:49meaning Ukraine with the support of countries like the US or France. The Kremlin clearly

02:55sending this as a warning signal to Western allies of Ukraine as they are debating this

03:03possibility of green lighting the use of long-range weapons deep into Russia.

03:07And Ketivan, meanwhile, look, there is this growing rift between the Ukrainian government

03:12and the Republicans in the United States, not least of all Donald Trump himself.

03:17Absolutely. Just a few weeks ago, we were still talking about the possibility that not

03:21only was Zelensky going to meet Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but that he was going to

03:25also possibly meet Donald Trump. That has gone out the window, it seems. And now Donald

03:32Trump, who has in the past been really iffy, if you might say, about supporting Ukraine

03:39just at the debate with Kamala Harris. He was saying that he was refusing to answer

03:44a question on whether he wanted to see Ukraine win the war. Now he is out there outright

03:51publicly criticizing Vladimir Zelensky. That was the case in North Carolina during a speech

03:57yesterday. Let's take a listen.

04:03Ukraine is in our country and he's making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite

04:08president, me. But take a look at the war happening right now in Ukraine. It would have

04:16never happened if I were president to start off with. I watched this poor guy yesterday

04:21at the United Nations. He didn't know what he was saying. They just don't know what to

04:28do. They're locked into a situation. It's sad. They just don't know what to do because

04:34Ukraine is gone. It's not Ukraine anymore.

04:41And Donald Trump clearly frustrated with Vladimir Zelensky. And this comes from a New Yorker

04:46story that was published on Sunday, where Zelensky criticized Trump saying that he doesn't

04:51really know how to stop the war, even if he says he does. And Trump's running mate

04:57J.D. Vance that Zelensky called too radical for suggesting that Ukraine should give up

05:02some land in order to have peace with Russia. But really what annoyed Republicans and Donald

05:09Trump is when Zelensky on Sunday actually toured a factory in Pennsylvania, in Scranton,

05:16the hometown of Joe Biden, a factory where workers are building weapons that are sent

05:23to Ukraine for the Ukrainian army to use in its war against Russia. He was joined by the

05:30Democratic governor, the Democratic senator, Democratic representative. And so Republicans

05:35are calling this simply a political stunt in a battleground state. The House Speaker,

05:42the Republican Mike Johnson, calling it election interference. He even sent a letter to the

05:46Ukrainians saying they should fire their ambassador to the United States over this so-called political

05:54stunt. Now, obviously, not all Republicans are angry with Zelensky, but you're seeing

05:59a growing rift within the Republican Party between those who are allied with Donald Trump

06:04and the so-called old school Republicans like Mitch McConnell, who still believe that the

06:10U.S. must continue to support Ukraine.

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