Zelenskiy Brings 'Victory Plan' To White House Meeting With Biden, Harris

U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to the White House on September 26 after announcing billions in military aid for Kyiv, insisting again that Russia "will not prevail" in its invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskiy presented Biden with what he has referred to as his "victory plan" and again requested that the United States lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons it has provided to strike deep inside Russia at military targets.

"Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail, and we'll continue to stand by you every step of the way," Biden said as he hosted Zelenskiy in the Oval Office after thanking him for presenting his plan.

"We deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side by side," said Zelenskiy, dressed in a dark green military-style outfit.

Biden, Zelenskiy Meet, Discuss New Aid Package For Ukraine

Zelenskiy also met with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party's nominee for president, later at the White House and shared his "victory plan" with her.

Harris told Zelenskiy that her support for the people of Ukraine was unwavering.

"The Ukrainian people are bravely defending their homes and their homeland, their freedom and their democracy against a brutal dictator," Harris told Zelenskiy at the White House.

She also said that calls for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia were "dangerous and unacceptable." She added that suggestions from Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance (Republican-Ohio), that Ukraine should cut a deal to end the war were not proposals for peace but "proposals for surrender."

Trump has said Ukraine should have made concessions to Putin in the months before Russia's invasion. At a campaign rally in North Carolina on September 25 he said, "Any deal -- the worst deal -- would’ve been better than what we have now."

Biden earlier on September 26 announced more than $8 billion in military aid for Kyiv and repeated in a statement that the United States will "provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war."

The package includes for the first time a system called Joint Standoff Weapon -- a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 130 kilometers launched from fighter aircraft -- as well as an additional Patriot air-defense battery and hundreds more Patriot missiles and AMRAAMs (advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles).

Biden, who is leaving office in January, said the training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots in the United States will also be expanded, including the training of an additional 18 pilots next year.

He said Washington and its partners were taking steps to disrupt a global cryptocurrency network used by Russia to evade sanctions and launder money, without elaborating.

Biden added he has called a top-level meeting of the 50 or so members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany next month to better coordinate efforts to back Ukraine's defense against Russian aggression.

Zelenskiy thanked Biden in a message on X. "I am grateful to [U.S. President] Joe Biden, U.S. Congress and its both parties, Republicans and Democrats, as well as the entire American people for today's announcement," he wrote.

Zelenskiy is looking to shore up support for his war effort ahead of the U.S. presidential election pitting Harris against Trump, who announced he would meet Zelenskiy on September 27 in New York after a separate meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The United States, Ukraine's main supporter, and Western allies have given Kyiv billions of dollars in military aid and other assistance while also slapping several rounds of sanctions on Moscow.

Few details are known about the "so-called victory plan" put together by Zelenskiy, who has been on an intensive diplomatic mission since he arrived for the annual UN General Assembly earlier this week.

Zelenskiy has said the plan will be a "bridge" toward ending the conflict, while media reports said it would ask for stepped-up U.S. military and financial backing and security guarantees, as well as further sanctions on Russia.

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People close to Zelenskiy have said the main security guarantee that Kyiv is pursuing is NATO membership, a longtime demand that has been met with skepticism by the United States and its allies.

Zelenskiy has also indicated he will again seek permission to use long-range missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russia to prevent attacks on its cities and infrastructure, a move Ukraine's allies are divided upon.

The White House played down Ukraine's hopes that Zelensky's visit would achieve that goal.

"I'm not expecting there to be any new announcements on this particular action or a decision coming out of this meeting," White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) said earlier that failing to allow the change in strategy would be a mistake.

After meeting with Zelenskiy at the U.S. Capitol on September 26, Graham said the Ukrainian president asked for only one thing: permission to use U.S. weapons to strike "legitimate military targets" inside Russia.

Graham said he believes that actions taken this week likely will determine the outcome of the war and that outcome will be "dire" for Ukraine if there is no change in the military strategy.

"If you continue the policy of holding Ukraine back because you are worried about escalation, you will doom them to lose," Graham told reporters after meeting Zelenskiy.

The Ukrainians "don't need just nice statements anymore. They need the capability to get [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to the table. And that will only come when you can hurt Putin militarily." If Biden really wants Ukraine to prevail, he must allow Zelenskiy to execute his plan, he added.

Zelenskiy told senators the plan is to hit specific targets, including air bases, that the Russian military uses in its attacks on Ukraine. Zelenskiy believes that attacking those targets would give him leverage to get Putin to negotiate, and Graham said he believes that too.

As the diplomatic efforts took place, Ukraine felt the brunt of Russian attacks on September 25 and 26. At least eight people were killed and 44 wounded, regional officials reported.

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A child was wounded in Kyiv as the Ukrainian capital and more than 10 other regions came under a wave of Russian strikes early on September 26.

Vadym Filashkin, the governor of Donetsk, said four people were killed and 19 were wounded across the region whose civilian areas were shelled 28 times.

In Kherson, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said, two people were killed and 14 were wounded. A 62-year-old woman was killed in a rocket attack in the Odesa region, according to Governor Oleh Kiper, while one person died in Russian shelling of the Sumy region.

Overnight shelling of the southern Zaporizhzhya region wounded eight people, one seriously, Governor Ivan Fedorov reported.

Separately, Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces had captured Ukrayinsk, a town in Donetsk some 30 kilometers south of Pokrovsk, a key hub that has been in Moscow's crosshairs for the past few months.