Chris Christie makes surprise visit to Ukraine

Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie made a surprise visit to Ukraine on Friday and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, amid growing divisions within the GOP over support for the war in Ukraine.

“It was an honor to meet with President @ZelenskyyUa in Ukraine and see firsthand the heroism Ukrainians have displayed in their fight against Russia,” Christie said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“America has never moved forward by ignoring the rest of the world,” he added. “We can’t start now.”

Christie, who has vowed to expand U.S. aid to Ukraine if elected, met with Zelensky in Kyiv Friday and paid visits to Bucha and Moshchun, two towns outside the Ukrainian capital that saw intense fighting in the early stages of the war.

“I feel the cruelty, and you feel the inhumanity,” Christie said during his visit. “And you look at this, and I don’t think there’s anyone in our country who would come here and see this and not feel as if these are the things that America needs to stand up to prevent.”

The former New Jersey governor is the second GOP presidential candidate to travel to Ukraine, after former Vice President Mike Pence visited in June.

Support for Ukraine has increasingly become a flashpoint within the Republican Party, as some House Republicans and several GOP candidates have voiced opposition to continuing to provide Kyiv with military aid. 

After former President Trump — the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination —declined to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war against Russia at a town hall in May, Christie accused the former president of being a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Donald Trump refused to say tonight that he wanted Ukraine to win the war with Russia,” Christie tweeted at the time. “More proof that he continues to be Putin’s puppet.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

— Updated 12:43 p.m.