Longshot Republican presidential candidate and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie flew to Ukraine on Friday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Mr. Christie, 60, met with Mr. Zelensky at the presidential palace to reiterate his stance on the importance of U.S. support for the war in Ukraine.
“I am an advocate for there being more aid to Ukraine, more substantial aid to Ukraine,” Mr. Christie said, promising to Mr. Zelenskyy that he wanted “to help you win the war.”
On his trip, Mr. Christie also visited Moshchun and Bucha, where Russian troops have carried out alleged war crimes by massacring Ukrainian civilians, claims that amplified international condemnation of the Russian invasion.
The two towns, about half an hour’s drive from Kyiv, were retaken by Ukrainian forces in March 2022 after a failed Russian campaign to take the Ukrainian capital.
In Bucha, Mr. Christie shook hands with the mayor before visiting a mass burial site, where he laid flowers on the graves and prayed for the fallen.
“I feel the cruelty, and you feel the inhumanity,” he said. “And you look at this, and I don’t think there’s anyone in our country who would come here and see this and not feel as if these are the things that America needs to stand up to prevent.”
After visiting a child protection center in Kyiv, Mr. Christie met with Mr. Zelenskyy.
“He was very complimentary of President [Joe] Biden,” Mr. Christie said after the meeting, “but also made clear that he thought there was more that needed to be done.”
“There was no conversation at all from him about, you know, the [presidential] race that I’m in,” Mr. Christie added.
The former New Jersey governor quickly established himself as the most outspoken anti-Trump Republican after joining the presidential race in June.
Polling at only a few percent in most national polls, Mr. Christie has been focusing his campaign intently on New Hampshire—a strategy that may be paying off, at least according to a new Manhattan Institute poll, which put him in third behind former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the key primary state.
In an interview with The Washington Post aboard a train from Poland to Kyiv, Mr. Christie addressed the divide within the GOP over the war in Ukraine, a divide that reflects itself in the party’s presidential candidates.
Frontrunner Mr. Trump and runners-up Mr. DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy have expressed their preference for less U.S. involvement, citing the cost of resources, human casualties, prioritizing national interests, and the risk of escalation.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Christie, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and former congressman Will Hurd advocate continuing U.S. support to Ukraine, citing advancing national interests and international consequences should Russia succeed in its territorial expansion.
In the interview, Mr. Christie said he hoped Republican voters would see which candidates are fit to deal “with the really complicated issues that the next president will have to deal with and who is going to be dealing with trying to keep themselves out of jail.”