NEW DELHI: US Presidential Debate 2024: Republican presidential candidate, and former US President, Donald Trump said that he wants to save lives that are being endlessly wasted and would end the Russia-Ukraine war if elected president. He said if he were the president, the war would not have started. 

During the presidential debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday in Pennsylvania, he said, “I'll get the war with Ukraine and Russia ended. If I'm president-elect, I'll get it done before even becoming president.” 

Trump said during his rule as the president from 2017 to 2021 there was no threat of war. "I know (Russian President Vladimir) Putin very well. He would have never -- and there was no threat of it either, by the way, for four years -- gone into Ukraine and killed millions of people when you add it up...” he said, blaming the Biden-Harris administration for not preventing the war. "If I were president, it would have never started,” he said. 

“I want to save lives that are being killed by the millions. It's millions. It's so much worse than the numbers you're getting, which are fake numbers," he said.

Trump said that he knows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, along with Putin. “I have a good relationship. They respect me, they don't respect Biden,” he said, referring to incumbent President Joe Biden. 

Criticising Biden, Trump said it is difficult to respect him as he did not even place a call in two years to Putin. “He hasn't spoken to anybody. That is a war that's dying to be settled. I will get it settled before I even become president if I win when I'm president-elect,” Trump continued.
Disagreeing with him, Vice President Harris said, "I believe the reason that Donald Trump says that this war would be over within 24 hours is because he would just give it up. And that's not who we are as Americans."

 Harris said she met Zelenskyy and shared “American intelligence about how he could defend himself" a few days before the Russian invasion and went to NATO's eastern flank to Poland and Romania days later, bringing 50 countries together to support Ukraine in its "righteous defence".

"Because of our support, because of the air defence, the ammunition, the artillery, the javelins, the Abrams tanks that we have provided, Ukraine stands as an independent and free country," she said.
"If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now and understand what that would mean because Putin's agenda is not just about Ukraine," she said.

Addressing Trump, she said, "Understand why the European allies and our NATO allies are so thankful that you are no longer president and that we understand the importance of...NATO. And what we have done to preserve the ability of Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians to fight for their independence. Otherwise, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland."