Volodymyr Zelensky sailed his hand through the air like a plane: "President Trump may be the first leader to travel here by airplane..." All of Ukraine's airports have been closed (if not destroyed) since February 24, 2022, the date of the start of the war with Russia, but − like Donald Trump − the Ukrainian president loves personal diplomacy, the kind that also involves imagery. So, on January 5, when he gave a three-hour interview to American computer scientist and podcast host Lex Fridman − his longest interview since the Russian invasion of Ukraine − he challenged the president-elect to be the first to make use of Ukrainian airspace as soon as peace is restored. "I think it would be symbolic by airplane!"
Trump has never set foot in Kyiv. Zelensky, on the other hand, has visited the United States seven times since his election in 2019. Heeding the dictates of war, off to Washington he went in December 2022, then in December 2023 and finally in September 2024, after a detour to Pennsylvania to present President Joe Biden with his "plan for victory." Each time, he asked for money and weapons.
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