Ukrainian president begins high-stakes trip with visit to weapons factory in Pennsylvania.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has begun a high-stakes visit to the United States during which he will present Kyivâs plan to end the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war against invading Russian forces to US President Joe Biden as well as election rivals Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
Zelenskyy, who will also attend the annual meeting of the United Nations on Tuesday and Wednesday, urged Ukraineâs allies to help achieve âa shared victory for a truly just peaceâ.
He is expected to present his peace proposals, which he has dubbed a âvictory planâ, to Biden on Thursday, before later meeting Harris, who is vice president. His office has said he expects to meet Republican candidate Trump on Thursday or Friday, although no date has been officially announced.
The Ukrainian president is in the US after a summer of intense fighting: with Moscow advancing in eastern Ukraine and Kyiv occupying tracts of Russiaâs Kursk region.
Zelenskyy made an unannounced stop under extraordinarily tight security at a Pennsylvania munitions plant which manufactures 155-millimetre artillery shells.
The shells are vital to Ukraineâs war effort and it has already received more than 3 million of them from the US.
âI began my visit to the United States by expressing my gratitude to all the employees at the plant,â Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X, including photos of him shaking hands with workers at the factory.
âIt is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail,â he wrote.
No details on Ukraineâs latest peace proposals have been made public.
Zelenskyy said Biden would be the first foreign leader to see the plan âin fullâ and that it would then also be presented to âall leaders of our partner countriesâ.
He has said that the âentire planâ will be ready by âearly Novemberâ.
The proposals, he told the media on Friday, envisage âquick and concrete steps by our strategic partnersâ.
One of those steps, he said, was ârelated to strengthening Ukraineâs weapons capabilitiesâ while another demanded a âclear place for Ukraine in the worldâs security architectureâ.
The 155mm shells made in the Scranton plant are used in howitzer systems, which are large guns with long barrels that can strike targets up to 15 miles to 20 miles (24 to 32km).
Zelenskyy has also been pushing the US and other allies to allow it to use Western-supplied long-range weapons to strike military targets deep inside Russia.
Biden has so far resisted, with Moscow claiming such authorisation would be akin to NATO countries being âat warâ with Russia.
Zelenskyyâs visit also coincides with US preparations for a new $375m military aid package for Ukraine.
Two US officials told the Reuters news agency last week that the package would include patrol boats, additional ammunition for high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) as well as 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition.