Harris urged Zelensky on a succession plan before the invasion
The US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, before Russia invaded Ukraine, urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to develop a "succession plan" in the event he was "captured or killed."
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Details on this topic have emerged in a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward, titled "War," with excerpts published by "The Washington Post."
"Oh my God, now I have to deal with Russia devouring Ukraine?"
According to Woodward, Harris discussed this issue with Zelensky in February 2022 at the Munich Security Conference. At the same time, Woodward notes that the administration of current US President Joe Biden found it difficult to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin would launch an invasion.
When CIA Director William Burns presented Biden with American intelligence data regarding the impending aggression, the American president called it "madness."
"Oh my God, now I have to deal with Russia devouring Ukraine?" Biden reportedly said.
Previously, Time magazine reported that Harris, one week before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, refused to supply weapons to Zelensky and impose preventive sanctions on Russia. According to the magazine, the meeting between the politicians at the Munich conference set the tone for their future relations, "which were never particularly warm."
Harris will not meet with Putin
In an interview published on Tuesday, Harris stated that there would be "no success in ending that war without Ukraine and the UN Charter participating in what that success looks like." She replied negatively when asked whether she would meet with Vladimir Putin to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
She further stated that if her opponent in the presidential election from the Republican Party, Donald Trump, were President of the United States, then "Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now," describing Trump's "peace plan" as Ukraine's surrender.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that he would need only 24 hours to end the war in Ukraine because he has good relationships with both Putin and Zelensky.
Harris' victory "the worst-case scenario"
Sources from "The Washington Post" among Russian officials indicated that the Kremlin hopes Trump will win the presidential election, as this would create a "window of opportunity" to resolve the armed conflict on Russia's terms.
Harris' victory is seen in Moscow as the worst possible scenario.
