Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to present President Joe Biden with a plan for winning the country’s war with Russia during a visit to the United States this week.
Zelensky wants to present the plan to Congress and to the two candidates running for the US presidential election: Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.
He is expected to step up efforts to persuade the United States and its allies to allow Ukraine to fire missiles delivered deep into Russian territory for the first time in the war.
Zelensky’s US visit coincides with White House efforts to prepare a new $375m (£283m) military aid package for Ukraine.
This fall will “decide the future of this war,” Zelensky wrote in a post on X.
In a statement ahead of the visit, the Ukrainian leader previewed three elements to his plan: more arms donations, diplomatic efforts to force Russia to agree to peace and Moscow taking responsibility for its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Ukraine has been pleading for months with the United States, Britain and other Western allies to ease restrictions on the use of long-range missiles, Kyiv says, so it can hit targets in Russia.
Earlier in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West that he considered long-range missile strikes to be “direct participation” of the NATO military alliance in the war.
Asked by reporters Sunday if he had made a decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons made by the United States, Biden replied: “No.”
Trump has previously criticized US support for Ukraine and spoke highly of Putin, but said he would “probably” meet with Zelensky.
The former president previously flagged his own plan to end the war “within 24 hours” if re-elected in November, but did not provide details.
According to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whom he met in March, Trump has vowed to “not pay a dime to the Ukraine-Russia war. That’s why the war will end.”
Zelensky’s statement thanked Ukraine’s allies for their support to date, singling out the US in particular as its “leading supporter”.
The United States is the largest foreign donor to Ukraine, providing $56 billion for its defense to date.
After arriving in the United States on Sunday, Zelensky stopped in Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to visit a munitions factory involved in supplying the Ukrainian war effort.
After Washington, Zelensky is expected to travel to New York and the United Nations for a scheduled meeting of the Security Council on Tuesday and a speech to the General Assembly on Wednesday.
