Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s long-awaited visit to D.C. will take place as soon as the two sides can hammer out a good plan for the trip, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged in Kyiv.
“I am very confident that we will engage at the senior levels at the appropriate time in all the ways that do the right thing,” Pompeo told reporters alongside Zelensky. “President Zelensky will be welcome to come to Washington when we have an opportunity to do good things for both the Ukrainian people and the American people. We’ll get it done. I am confident of that.”
Pompeo is trying to turn the page on the scandal that culminated in the impeachment of President Trump. The high-profile visit is taking place on the same weekend that Senate Republicans hope to acquit Trump of the House Democratic charges that he pressured Ukrainian leaders to help his reelection campaign and then obstructed a congressional investigation. With the Senate trial in its final stages, Pompeo and Zelensky sought to downplay the significance of the political controversy that haunted U.S. efforts to coordinate with the new Ukrainian leader for months.
“I don’t think that these friendly and warm relations have been influenced by impeachment trial of Mr. President, but many times I have reiterated this is our strategic ally, and we are doing everything in our power to step up our cooperation,” Zelensky said.
That conclusion may be rosy. Zelensky couldn’t hide his discomfort when a brief encounter with Trump at the United Nations in September was dominated by questions about whether Trump tried to use aid as leverage to pressure Zelensky into accusing Joe Biden of corruption. The situation worsened hours later, when Trump released a transcript of the now-famous phone call in which Zelensky tried to flatter his American counterpart while the U.S. president urged him to work with Rudy Giuliani, who was searching for evidence to implicate Biden in a Ukrainian corruption scandal.
“In particular, the relations between Kyiv and Washington are invariably strong because the groundwork for them is the full confidence, mutual understanding, and long-lasting strategic interest,” Zelensky said.
That’s the message that he had hoped Trump would send after his election last year, when U.S. and Ukrainian officials were planning to stage a Washington visit that would demonstrate support for Zelensky. State Department officials wanted to strengthen his hand in negotiations to end the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory. Giuliani’s efforts upended that plan, as Trump refused to meet with Zelensky unless Giuliani was satisfied that the Ukrainians were doing enough to fight corruption — especially the allegations against Biden.
Pompeo, for his part, approved of Zelensky’s reform attempts without making any reference to the former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.
“Western companies are great business partners because they embrace the rule of law — the very things that President Zelensky and Ukrainians are fighting for,” he said.
Still, Zelensky was careful not to appear too eager for the White House meeting that has burned him once.
“I am receiving a lot of invitations to visit this or that countries on different matters,” he said. “With all due respect to the United States of America, when we have the subject matter of the talk except strategy and tactics but also important things we can agree upon, what we can sign, what we can get done, I am ready to go tomorrow.”
