GOP presidential hopeful Chris Christie says 'inhumanity' of war is palpable during visit to Ukraine

BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has become the second 2024 Republican presidential hopeful to visit Ukraine, meeting Friday with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, touring ravaged villages and saying what he saw further impressed to him that the U.S. should continue to help the country fend off Russia's attack.

“I feel the cruelty, and you feel the inhumanity,” Christie said during his trip, which included stops in the villages of Bucha and Moshchun, both on the outskirts of Kyiv. “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."

During the visit, Christie placed flowers at the memorial complex in Bucha, where there was a mass grave of civilians, and prayed for Ukrainian volunteers who were killed by Russian troops at the beginning of the war in Moshchun.

“I really suspected that if I saw this in person that it would arm me to be a better advocate for support, I think, from the stuff I saw today just now, and the meeting with the president ... I think I'm much better off,” Christie said after his meeting with Zelenskyy.