NEW YORK, Sept. 20 – Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump apparently refused to meet with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in New York to discuss Russia and other policy issues, Foreign Policy reported Tuesday citing the Poroshenko administration.

The Ukrainian officials reached out to both Trump and his Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to meet with Poroshenko, a Poroshenko administration spokesperson said.

Only Clinton said yes, sitting down with the president on Monday. The Trump campaign did not give a clear answer.

Trump already has a contentious relationship with Kiev, irking the Ukrainian public and government officials with his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow-friendly views on the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine.

According to Trump’s public schedule, he’s already jetted to North Carolina and has plans to be in Ohio and Pennsylvania the rest of the week, not in New York, where the U.N. meeting ends on Sept. 26, the day of the first presidential debate.

Clinton met Monday with Poroshenko and they discussed the importance of continued sanctions imposed on Moscow after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014.

According to a release from Poroshenko’s office, he thanked Clinton for her continued support of Ukraine in the ongoing conflict, and the leaders agreed that “solidarity with Ukraine is important in resisting the Russian aggression.”

Trump, on the other hand, has appeared at times to invite Russia’s bellicose behavior towards Kiev.

In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News in late July, Trump said that Putin “is not going into Ukraine,” despite widespread proof that Russian troops moved into the Crimean peninsula and eastern Ukraine two years earlier. When Stephanopoulos challenged Trump, the GOP candidate responded by saying, “OK, well, he’s there in a certain way, but I’m not there yet,” before adding that “that whole part of the world is a mess under Obama.”

The comments drew widespread criticism in the United States and Trump later took to Twitter to clarify his confusing remarks, tweeting that he meant Putin would not go into Ukraine again if he were president. But the comments had already drawn ire in Kiev, with former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk calling Trump’s statement “a breach of moral and civilized principles.”

Ukrainian ambassador to Washington Valeriy Chaly told FP at the time that Trump’s comments raised fears in Kiev that if elected he would change U.S. policy towards the country by cooperating more closely with Moscow and “open a Pandora’s box of bigger instability in the world.” (fp/ez)