Former US president Donald Trump made a demonstrably false claim about Vladimir Putin, his invasion of Ukraine and Kamala Harris on Wednesday.
At a speech in North Carolina on Wednesday, the Republican nominee alleged his Democratic rival had met with Putin days before he attacked his European neighbour.
But in reality, the two have never met.
Trump told his supporters at the rally: “Remember when Biden sent Kamala to Europe to stop the war in Ukraine?
“She met with Putin, and then three days later, he attacked. How did she do? Do you think she did a good job? She met with Putin to tell him, ‘Don’t do it.’
“And three days later, he attacked; that’s when the attack started. Did you know that, General?”
He was speaking to retired US Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who was at the North Carolina event.
While Harris never met Putin, she did meet US allies and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Munich Security Conference between February 18 to 20, 2022.
The Russian president was not at the conference himself.
The West was still trying to discourage Putin from invading Ukraine at the time, but was preparing in the event that he did declare war against his neighbour.
US president Joe Biden told reporters that he thought a Russian attack “will happen in the next several days”.
Five days later, Putin chose to invade Ukraine, on February 24, 2022.
The Kremlin also confirmed last month that Harris and the Russian president are yet to meet, saying: “Frankly speaking, I cannot recall a single contact between President Putin and Mrs Harris.”
Unlike his rival, Trump has met Putin and has often boasted about their close relationship, even alleging that he tried to dissuade him from invading Ukraine.
Last week, he said in an interview with X boss Elon Musk: “I know Putin very well, I got along with him very well, he respected me and it’s just one of those things, and we would talk a lot about Ukraine. It was the apple of his eye!
“But I said to him, ‘Don’t ever do it.’”
Recalling a particular conversation between them, he said: “I said to him, Vladimir Putin, ‘Don’t do it. You can’t do it, Vladimir, you do it, it’s going to be a bad day, you cannot do it.’
“And I told him things – that what I do, and he said, ‘no way,’ and I said, ‘way’.”