Mike Pence unexpectedly visited Ukraine: he visited Bucha and met with Zelensky

Former Vice President and presidential candidate Mike Pence made a surprise visit to Ukraine on June 29. He became the first Republican presidential candidate to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the election campaign. Writes about it NBC News.

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The visit came at one of the defining moments of the war, immediately following the uprising of a Wagner PMC mercenary group and a deadly Russian missile attack on a pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk.

Pence has been candid about his support for Ukraine, a move that sends a strong signal that he believes the US should play a leading role in the country's fight against Russia. This puts Pence in a unique position within the Republican Party, a party once dominated by people opposed to growing Russian influence, but now led by a man who has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and whose campaign is largely uninterested in supporting Ukraine.

“I believe that America is the leader of the free world,” Pence said. “But to come here simply as a private citizen - to have the opportunity to see firsthand the heroism of the Ukrainian soldiers who held the line on the front line, to see the heroism of the people here in Irpen who held off the Russian army, to see the families whose houses were literally shelled at the height of the Russian invasion - this is only strengthens my resolve to do my part to continue to urge Americans to resolutely support our Ukrainian friends and allies.”

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In addition to meeting Zelensky, Pence spent the day looking into the atrocities Ukrainians have endured over the past 16 months. He visited Moshchun, Bucha, Irpen - three cities that Russian troops occupied and devastated.

According to one of Zelensky's top advisers, Mikhail Podolyak, Pence "understands absolutely clearly what Russia is."

“He deeply understands Russia and deeply understands the nature of this conflict, that this is not about territories, not about some enterprises, about anything other than those values ​​for which the United States was created,” Podolyak said, naming “freedom , competition and democracy".

“This is about helping a country that is ready to defend the fundamental, core values ​​on which the United States as a whole is built,” he stressed.

The future of U.S. support for Ukraine's war effort is in doubt, and the voters Pence is trying to win in the Republican primary are reluctant to help the country. In the latest NBC News nationwide poll, 52% of GOP voters said they were less likely to support a candidate who supported additional funds and weapons for Ukraine, and only 28% said they would support such a candidate.

“I am here because it is important that the American people understand the progress we have made and how supporting the Ukrainian military is in our national interest,” Pence explained. “I truly believe that now, more than ever, we need leaders in our country who will articulate the importance of American leadership in the world.”

“We'll let the polls and politics take care of themselves, but it was important for me to be here to better understand what the people of Ukraine have endured, the senseless violence inflicted on them during the unprovoked invasion of the Russian military and the progress they have made in the fight against them,” he noted. “It strengthened my resolve and made me better prepared so that when I returned home, I could tell the American people about the vital importance of American support in repelling Russian aggression.”

Pence's position sets him apart from some Republican rivals. And, speaking of his views on foreign policy, he remembered President Ronald Reagan as his guiding light.

“Since Ronald Reagan, the American people have always stood with those who fought back to protect their freedom,” he said. “We actually called it the Reagan Doctrine: the idea that if you were ever willing to fight the communists in your own country, we will give you the means to fight them there so that we never have to fight them in ours.” earth. This is an integral part of what destroyed the Soviet Union and allowed Ukraine to live freely. But I believe most Republicans and most Americans still stick with it.”

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis initially stumbled in his response to the war and received criticism from within the party for calling it a "territorial dispute" and stating that supporting Ukraine was not a "vital" U.S. interest. He later reversed course and called Putin a "war criminal".

And the leader of the Republican Party in the polls, the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, first praised Putin when he invaded Ukraine and said that it was “very smart”, and then assured that he could end the war in just 24 hours.

“Everyone can express their vision of how everything should develop in a historical sense,” Podolyak summed up. “But we live in the real world.”

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