Donald Trump said he will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York on Friday.
The Republican presidential candidate told a news conference that the pair would meet at around 09:45 ET (14:45 BST) at his Trump Tower hotel.
The meeting was expected to go ahead despite earlier reports that it had been canceled amid growing anger among senior Republicans after Mr Zelensky previously visited the US state of Pennsylvania Ky.
On Thursday, Zelensky met US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House to discuss his “victory plan”, which he hopes will pressure Russia to agree to end War through diplomacy.
“President Zelensky asked to meet with me and I will meet with him tomorrow morning,” Mr. Trump told reporters in New York.
“It’s a shame what’s happening in Ukraine. So many deaths, so much destruction. It’s a terrible thing.”
Trump said he believes he will be able to “reach a deal” between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky “pretty quickly.”
When asked for details on such a deal, he replied: “I don’t want to tell you what it looks like.”
The former US president spoke after Zelensky met Biden and Harris earlier. Hours earlier, Biden announced a $7.9 billion military assistance package for Ukraine.
Speaking alongside Ukraine’s president after the meeting, Harris said there were “some in my country” who would “force Ukraine to give up most of its sovereign territory”.
“These proposals are similar to Putin’s proposals,” she said, calling them “surrender proposals.”
When asked by a reporter at a press conference whether Ukraine should cede land to Russia to end the war, Mr. Trump did not answer directly.
“Let us have peace,” he said. “We need peace. We need to stop the death and destruction.”
Friday’s meeting took place amid tensions between Zelensky and Republicans ahead of the US presidential election in November.
Some Republicans were angered by Zelensky’s visit to a weapons factory in Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, along with top Democrats this week, including the state’s governor Hey Josh Shapiro.
Zelensky’s visit to the key swing state was seen by top Republicans as a partisan campaign event.
In a public letter, US House Speaker Mike Johnson said the visit was “designed to help Democrats” and characterized it as “election interference”.
Trump and Zelensky have a complicated relationship.
In 2019, Trump was impeached by the US House of Representatives for accusing him of pressuring the Ukrainian leader to extract damaging information about a political opponent. A rough transcript of the call shows Trump urged Zelensky to investigate Biden, as well as Biden’s son.
Trump has also become increasingly critical of continued US funding of Ukraine and in recent days has stepped up his attacks on Zelensky, calling him “the greatest salesman on Earth”.
Zelensky recently told New Yorker magazine that he believes Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop war.”
When asked about Zelensky’s comments on Thursday, Trump responded: “I believe I disagree with him. He doesn’t know me.”
