Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, clashed repeatedly over Russia, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine in the highly anticipated presidential debate on Tuesday evening.

Harris told former US President Trump that Putin would “eat him for lunch”, adding that if the Republican became president, “Putin would be sitting in Kiev right now”.

She also accused Trump of being willing to abandon Ukraine after two and a half years of war and immense US military funding.

“Understand why European allies and our NATO allies are so grateful that you are no longer president, and that we understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever seen, which is NATO,” Harris said during the presidential debate, according to a transcript of the debate obtained by ABC News.

“We have preserved the ability of Zelensky and the Ukrainians to fight for their independence. Otherwise Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe. Starting with Poland,” she said, describing Putin as “a dictator who would eat anyone for lunch.”

Trump dismissed Harris’ comments, saying the war would not have started if he had been in power in 2022. He also told the audience that Putin “would be sitting in Moscow and he would not have lost 300,000 men and women in this war.”

Exact figures on the number of war casualties are not known. Neither Russia nor Ukraine release such sensitive information, but US intelligence estimated last year that around 315,000 Russian soldiers – the vast majority of them men – had been killed or wounded in the war.

Trump has repeatedly indicated that he could cut military funding for Ukraine and wants to seek an immediate end to the conflict. In Kyiv, officials fear that this measure would mean that the country would have to cede occupied territories to Russia as part of an agreement.

Trump was asked several times Tuesday night whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war or whether it was in the best interest of the United States for Kiev to win. He replied that he wanted to end the war to save lives and that he would try to negotiate a deal with Russia. He had previously said he would end the war within 24 hours if he were president, but did not say how he would do that.

On Tuesday, he also did not comment on how an agreement could be reached or whether it would involve Ukraine ceding occupied territories to Russia – a concession that Kiev had previously rejected.

“I think it’s in the best interest of the United States to end this war and just get it over with. All right. Negotiate a deal. Because we have to stop all these lives from being destroyed,” he said during the ABC News presidential debate, according to a transcript.

“I want the war to stop. I want to save lives that are being senselessly killed… millions of people are being killed. It’s millions. It’s so much worse than the numbers you’re getting, and those are false numbers,” Trump said, without providing evidence or further details.

Harris said she believes “the reason Donald Trump says this war will be over in 24 hours is because he would just give up on it. And that’s not who we are as Americans.”

The presidential candidates clashed over Ukraine’s military funding, a high-profile issue between Democrats and Republicans that led to a months-long deadlock in deciding on a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine that was finally agreed to in the spring.

To date, the United States has provided Ukraine with more than $55.7 billion in military aid, the U.S. State Department said in a statement last week, since Russia launched what Washington described as a “deliberate, unprovoked and brutal large-scale invasion of Ukraine” in February 2022.

Harris said on Tuesday that military funding from the United States and its international allies had enabled Ukraine to resist the Russian invasion. She added: “Thanks to our support, thanks to the air defenses, the munitions, the artillery, the javelins and the Abrams tanks that we have provided, Ukraine is an independent and free country.”

Trump on Tuesday reiterated his oft-stated view that the United States should neither pay more to support Ukraine than its European partners, nor contribute more to NATO, because Europe is “a much bigger beneficiary of this thing coming about than we are.”

“They (Europe) should be forced to compromise. That being said, I want to end the war. I know (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky very well, and I know Putin very well. I have a good relationship (with them),” Trump said.

Early Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the debate between Trump and Harris a spectacle.

“To be honest, I don’t know why you think this is big news,” the official told Sputnik Radio when asked for comment on the debate, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

“Is this big news that we might once again be watching a show by people who obviously take no responsibility for their words?” she asked rhetorically.

Ukraine has not commented publicly on the debate between Harris and Trump and has been careful not to take sides in the run-up to the election so as not to anger either political camp or the future president.