Democratic nominee for the US presidency Kamala Harris has said that she will not engage in peace talks with Russia without the participation of Ukraine if she takes the White House in November.
The vice president shared her stance during an interview on the CBS 60 Minutes program that was aired on Monday, Oct. 7.
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“There will be no success in ending that war without Ukraine and the UN Charter participating in what that success looks like,” she said.
She emphasized there would be no one-on-one meetings between her and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Not bilaterally without Ukraine, no. Ukraine must have a say in the future of Ukraine,” she said.
Harris doubled down on her pledge to continue supporting Ukraine but made no promises concerning how her administration might handle the situation. When pressed about whether she would support Ukraine’s membership in the NATO military alliance, she was noncommittal.
“Those are all issues that we will deal with, if and when it arrives at that point,” Harris said. “Right now, we are supporting Ukraine's ability to defend itself against Russia's unprovoked aggression.”
The Democratic candidate made sure to point out the likely Ukraine policy of her rival, should he win next month:“Donald Trump, if he were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now. He [says] he can end it on Day One – you know what that is – it's about surrender,” she said.
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Although neither candidate has laid out a specific approach to Ukraine yet, experts say the impact of each potential administration is already clear.
“A Harris administration might well continue [President Joe Biden’s] policy of providing Ukraine with enough support so that it does not lose, but not with the wherewithal to win and eject Russia from Ukrainian territory,” Angela Stent, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote last week.
Harris said the US “will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies” during the Democratic convention in August but avoided answering a direct question about wanting Ukraine to win during the presidential debate last month.
Trump, too, refused to answer the question – but his previous term in office and more recent comments about the war in Ukraine sum up his position well: “We're stuck in that war unless I'm president. I'll get it done. I'll get it negotiated. I'll get out,” Trump said during a campaign rally in Georgia last month.
But the lack of details about how he wants the war to end is what concerns Ukraine and its allies. “Trump has not shared any details about how he would end this brutal war of attrition or how he would force both sides to the negotiating table,” Stent said.
The candidates’ picks for running mates are revealing too. Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a career politician with little foreign policy experience.
This signals that Harris is less concerned with bolstering her team’s knowledge and experience with international affairs than she is worried about showing American voters that her approach to domestic policies is well-balanced.
Trump went with Ohio Senator JD Vance, whose comments about Ukraine mirror an extreme version of those of Trump. “JD Vance has been much more explicitly anti-Ukraine,” Stent said.
The pick implies that the former president aims to establish a more contentious relationship with Ukraine that is more based on political interests than a shared victory against Russia.
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