Ukraine president says Trump didn't seek to blackmail him

Thursday, 10 October 2019 13:41

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy denied that his US counterpart tried to blackmail him into investigating Joe Biden during a phone call in July.

Zelenskiy told reporters that his aim was to arrange a subsequent meeting and that he had asked the White House to change its rhetoric on Ukraine.

"There was no blackmail. This was not the subject of our conversation," he emphasised.

He also claimed that he hadn't known that the US military aid to Ukraine had been blocked at the time of the call.

A rough White House transcript showed that Donald Trump had asked Zelensky to investigate Biden, sparking an impeachment inquiry into the US President.

More from International News

US military targets IS in Syria strikes

The US military said on Saturday it carried out multiple strikes in Syria targeting ISIS as part of an operation that Washington launched in December after an attack on American personnel.
Israeli fire kills three people in Gaza, tension rises

Israeli fire killed at least three Palestinians in two separate incidents across Gaza, local health authorities said, as tension rises over continued violence.
Tens of thousands protest in Minneapolis over fatal ICE shooting

Tens of thousands of people marched through Minneapolis on Saturday to decry the fatal shooting of a woman by a US immigration agent, part of more than 1,000 rallies planned nationwide over the weekend against the federal government's deportation drive.
One dead in Australian bush fires

At least one person has died in Australia's southeast where bushfires raging for days have razed buildings, cut power to thousands of homes and burned swathes of bushland, police said on Sunday.