Chris Christie meets with Zelenskyy in unannounced trip to Ukraine

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican presidential candidate, made a surprise visit to Ukraine on Friday, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, the country’s capital.

Christie met with Zelenskyy at the country's presidential palace, where he reiterated his support for Ukraine, according to a pool report, contrasting his candidacy with some in the Republican Party who have opposed providing aid to the country.

Christie, the second 2024 Republican presidential candidate to visit Ukraine, following former Vice President Mike Pence, said he hoped to get a firsthand look at the wartime atrocities that the country has experienced.

"I am an advocate for there being more aid to Ukraine," Christie said, according to the pool report, adding that he hoped U.S. aid would help Ukraine defeat Russia in the war.

"It’s very important that the U.S. is on the right side," Zelenskyy told the former U.S. governor.

Christie also visited the once-Russian-occupied city of Bucha — where he met with the town’s mayor, Anatoliy Fedoruk — as well as Moshchun, another area that has seen intense fighting. In Bucha, Fedoruk and Christie visited a mass burial site, where Christie laid a bouquet of flowers at a memorial for those who died in the area. Over 1,000 civilians reportedly died in Bucha as a result of Russia's invasion.

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The former governor’s visit in the early race for the GOP nomination aimed to demonstrate his support for Ukraine. As some Republicans remain skeptical about providing more financial support to Kyiv, other candidates including Pence and Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, have vowed to continue U.S. aid efforts if they are elected president.

Former President Donald Trump has said that opposing Russia in Ukraine is not vital to the United States' strategic interests, and, at a rally last weekend, he urged Republican lawmakers to pause military aid to Ukraine unless the Biden administration cooperates with GOP-led probes of the president and his son Hunter Biden.

Similarly, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had previously told conservative personality Tucker Carlson that defending Ukraine was not a vital U.S. interest and described the conflict as a "territorial dispute," though later he walked back those remarks.