Zelensky was expected to make a statement that would harm Trump’s opponent.
On Wednesday, the correspondence of the State Department’s special representative for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, with high-ranking American diplomats and the assistant to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky was published. From their text messages it follows that diplomats sought a Zelensky press conference with statements that would help US President Trump in the election campaign.
Volker himself provided his correspondence to Congress. Messages were posted on the website of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs. It is in the lower house that an investigation is being conducted as part of the impeachment procedure of the president.
It follows from the correspondence that diplomats linked key events in bilateral relations — Zelensky’s official visit to Washington and the allocation of military assistance to Ukraine — with the willingness of the Ukrainian President to meet Trump halfway.
On July 25, the day of Trump’s phone conversation with Zelensky, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker wrote to Zelensky’s adviser Andrei Ermak that he had received information from the White house. “If President Z convinces Trump that he will get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will determine the exact date for a visit to Washington”, – the report said.
During the conversation, Trump asked Zelensky to find out “what happened to this whole situation with Ukraine” in 2016. It is an unconfirmed theory that Ukraine played a role in hacker attacks during the US election campaign in 2016.