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Harris says she will not meet Putin for truce talks without Ukraine's participation

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Harris says she will not meet Putin for truce talks without Ukraine's participation
US Vice President Kamala Harris during a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president, not pictured, in the Vice President's Ceremonial Office in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said in an interview aired on Oct. 7 that if she is elected, she would refuse to engage in peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin without Ukraine’s involvement.

"Not bilaterally without Ukraine, no. Ukraine must have a say in the future of Ukraine," Harris told CBS's "60 Minutes" when asked if she would consider negotiating one-on-one with Putin to end the war.

The Biden administration has similarly ruled out discussions with Putin, and Harris criticized former President Donald Trump’s approach to the Ukraine crisis, calling his policies a surrender to Russia’s invasion.

"Donald Trump, if he were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now. He talks about, 'Oh, he can end it on day one.' You know what that is? It's about surrender," she added.

Harris also commented on Ukraine's potential NATO membership, saying she would address the issue "if and when it arrives at that point."

"Right now, we are supporting Ukraine's ability to defend itself against Russia's unprovoked aggression," she said. "There will be no success in ending that war without Ukraine and the UN charter participating in what that success looks like."

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Olena Goncharova

Head of North America desk

Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.

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