US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have met at Trump Tower in New York, The Guardian reports.
‘We're honoured to have the president among us, he's been through a lot,’ Trump said.
He added that Zelenskyy is ‘going through tremendous difficulties’ and during the talks, ‘we'll see what we can come to.’
Zelenskyy said that he and Trump ‘share a common opinion that the war in Ukraine must end’ and that it was important to meet with both US presidential candidates.
Trump also said that he and Zelenskyy have a ‘very good relationship’ and then added: ‘I also have a very good relationship with President Putin.’
‘I think if we win, we will resolve this issue very quickly,’ Trump said, referring to Russia's war against Ukraine.
Zelenskyy immediately responded to Trump's comments about his relationship with Putin and said he hoped he and Trump would have a better relationship than Putin and Trump.
Update. Speaking on Fox News, Trump told reporters that he wanted a ‘fair deal for everybody’ and noted that he had ‘learned a lot’ during his meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday.
‘We need to do everything we can to put pressure on Vladimir Putin to ‘end this war,’’ the Ukrainian president added.
Asked if there would be another meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy, the US politician said that it ‘may well happen’.
Zelenskyy invited the US presidential candidate to come to Ukraine, to which Trump agreed. ‘I will definitely come to Ukraine, it's a beautiful country, beautiful weather, beautiful everything,’ the politician said.
When asked by journalists about how Trump would imagine a ‘fair’ deal that would end the war between Russia and Ukraine, the former president gave a vague answer, CNN reports.
‘It's too early to talk about it... I have my own ideas, and the president certainly has his own ideas. It has to be fair,’ Trump said.
Zelenskyy added that ‘this war should not start’.
‘I think the problem is that Putin has killed so many people, and of course we need to do everything we can to put pressure on him and stop this war. He is on our territory - this is the most important thing to understand - he is on our territory,’ the Ukrainian president stressed.