Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie provided some Bon Jovi inspiration to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a recent visit to Kyiv, and it wasn’t “Livin’ on a Prayer.”
Christie, a challenger for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Friday. The New York Post reported Sunday that Christie gave Zelenskyy lyrics to the New Jersey-based band’s 2000 hit song “It’s My Life,” handwritten by the band’s frontman, Jon Bon Jovi.
In March of last year, about a month after Russia launched its invasion, Bon Jovi tweeted a video of Ukrainians in Odesa filling sandbags while a drummer plays along to a recording of “It’s My Life.”
“[Bon Jovi] wrote it out in his own hand, got it framed, and I brought it to President Zelenskyy … and said that this is representative of many of the American people and what they feel about the cause that’s being fought for in Ukraine,” Christie told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
Christie is the second Republican presidential candidate to visit Ukraine. Former Vice President Mike Pence met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv in June. Christie is among a number of GOP candidates, Pence included, who have vowed to continue American support for Ukraine if elected president.
Christie, who many believe is seeking the 2024 nomination solely to be a foil to former President Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner, said he visited Ukraine because he wants Americans to “know about the atrocities that were being and are being committed against the free Ukrainian people.”
“I went to the town of Bucha where I went to a shallow grave of 160 civilians who were executed by the Russian army,” Christie said. “But before they were executed, for many of them, their eyes were gouged out. Their ears were cut off.
“Then their hands were tied behind their back and they were shot in the back of the head by Russian soldiers. Civilians. Not soldiers, civilians. Then Russian soldiers went in and raped the mothers and the daughters that were in the house after the men of the house had been killed.”
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