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NEW YORK — President Biden has a clear agenda for this week’s annual meeting of leaders at the U.N. General Assembly here in New York: Remain resilient global support for Ukraine.
But implementation will be difficult – especially this year.
Ukrainian officials had hoped to march into New York this week and announce major successes in their summer counteroffensive, but Russia’s entrenched forces have thwarted efforts to achieve that A major breakthrough and both sides continue to suffer heavy casualties.
The conflict’s impact on food and energy prices has increased calls for a negotiated solution in developing countries. And support among Americans The public has softened, as part of the Republican Party criticizes The estimated cost of the war effort is $73 billion.
But Biden, who is scheduled to address the gathering on Tuesday, is backed by the conflict’s most charismatic voice: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who also will visit New York to draw attention to Russia’s atrocities and highlight that the Kremlin’s invasion violates the United Nations’ most sacred principle of border sovereignty – a cause he hopes will unite all countries fearing coercion have a larger neighbor.
“President Biden looks forward to hearing President Zelensky’s perspective on all of this and for the world and the United States, for the American people, to reaffirm his commitment to continue to be a global leader in supporting Ukraine,” the said White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday in a preview of Biden’s activities this week.
An important arrow in Biden’s quiver is the relatively low participation of America’s main opponents in the gathering. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, will not fly to New York, nor will Chinese President Xi Jinping or his top diplomat Wang Yi.
Colloquially known as the Super Bowl of global diplomacy, the meeting is one of the best opportunities for advancement Countries that are not invited to meetings of wealthy nations like the Group of Seven to voice their concerns about world events. The vacancies offer Biden and Zelensky a chance to dominate the agenda and lend a sympathetic ear to the leaders of less wealthy nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, a region often referred to as the Global South.
The key to achieving this goal will be Biden’s plan Meeting on Wednesday with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a prominent advocate for the Global South who has called for peace talks in Ukraine and accused the West of prolonging the conflict by supplying Kiev with weapons and military equipment. “The United States must stop promoting war and start talking about peace,” Lula said this spring.
Sullivan has made it clear that the United States will continue to support Ukraine militarily and, in its view, discourage premature calls for peace talks – even as the battles in Ukraine intensify and it appears less likely that Kiev’s forces will cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea important Russian military transit route.
“From our perspective, our job is to provide Ukraine with the tools it needs to be best positioned on the battlefield so that it can be best positioned at the negotiating table,” Sullivan said.
US intelligence believes that Ukraine will not reach the city of Melitopol in its current offensive. Last week, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Ukrainian troops may only have “30 to 45 days of combat weather” left in the current offensive.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told German media on Sunday that there would be no quick end to the conflict. “Most wars last longer than expected when they start,” he told the Funke media group. “We all want a quick peace.”
By contrast, Ukrainian diplomats arrived in New York at last year’s UN meeting with the wind at their backs as Kiev’s forces pushed back and recaptured Russian forces around the southern city of Kherson and the northeastern city of Kharkiv valuable territory.
Still, Milley and other senior U.S. officials said Ukrainian troops were “not finished yet” and continued to make “steady progress.”
While the majority of UN member states have voted to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many in the Global South are increasingly worried about the prospect of an endless standoff. A bloc of nations in Africa and Latin America maintains economic and diplomatic ties with the Kremlin and refuses to enforce Western sanctions out of fear of the economic fallout.
“The default position of the majority of UN members is that we need to negotiate an end to the war,” said Richard Gowan, UN expert at the International Crisis Group. “If Zelensky sits on the UN Security Council and says that we will continue to fight forever, then that will create a clear dissonance with many non-Western countries that are struggling with debt and poverty and feel that their problems be dwarfed.”
Sullivan, the national security adviser, disputed the notion that there is a significant gap between the position of the United States and developing countries, saying American diplomats have worked hard to close the gap. “We actually believe that over the last few months we have built a strong engagement and dialogue with the Global South about what a just peace will ultimately look like,” he said. “It seems that Russia is not particularly serious about this at the moment.”
A top U.S. opponent making the trip to New York is Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, whose nation has provided Russia with a fleet of self-detonating Shahed drones that have threatened Ukrainian troops and population centers. Raisi told a small group of journalists in New York on Monday that Iran was “against the war in Ukraine.” Period.”
However, when asked about Iran’s military support for Russia, he was reticent and urged the assembled reporters to provide evidence. At the same time, he pointed out that Tehran already had a complex relationship with Moscow before the war.
Over and beyond In Ukraine, Biden’s speech to the world body is expected to highlight his administration’s track record of global leadership.
The president will also meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday as the two allies navigate a series of challenges that arise Israel’s most right-wing government in history. Biden and many Democrats in Congress are critical of Netanyahu’s plan to reform Israel’s judiciary, fearing it threatens the country’s democracy. Netanyahu has also repeatedly rejected Biden’s calls to halt West Bank settlement expansion and allow the United States to reopen a consulate in Jerusalem to serve Palestinians.
Given these divisions, Biden has kept his distance from the Israeli leader, and the meeting in New York will be their first tête-à-tête since Netanyahu won his election last fall.
This week, Biden will also become the first U.S. president to meet with the leaders of the five Central Asian countries of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Talks with these five countries, sometimes referred to collectively as “Stans,” are expected to focus on issues of trade, climate change and regional security. Biden is also expected to speak with UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
After the meetings in New York, Zelensky will follow Biden back to Washington as both leaders submit to Congress approval of additional funding for Ukraine. Biden is seeking a funding package of more than $24 billion, including $13.1 billion in military aid, $8.5 billion in humanitarian assistance and $2.3 billion for government financial needs.
The package is facing opposition from some House Republicans, but GOP leaders say Zelensky’s visit will likely be “very, very compelling,” Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday to CBS News. “Zelensky is a great speaker. He really makes the case better than anyone.”
The White House agrees with this – even if Zelensky’s requests for support occasionally annoy the Oval Office.
“He has proven over the course of the last 18, 19 months that there is no better advocate for his country, for his people and for the urgent and ongoing need that countries like the United States and our allies and partners face in providing the necessary tools and resources that Ukraine needs,” Sullivan said.
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