1 of 2 The Ukrainian president has conducted more negotiations than a war campaign Photo: GETTY IMAGES via BBC The Ukrainian president has conducted more negotiations than a war campaign Photo: GETTY IMAGES via BBC
Relations may have been close, the handshakes may have been firm, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a lot of work to do during his trip to the United States and Canada.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion “for as long as necessary,” drawing bipartisan support.
The United States’ pocket is bigger, but the political question is much more complicated.
Zelensky received a $325 million military aid package from the White House, but it was not the $24 billion he had hoped for. The multibilliondollar military aid proposal is stuck in Congress, which is nearly paralyzed by disagreements over the budget.
The difficulties don’t stop there.
In addition to meeting with US President Joe Biden, the Ukrainian leader also met with Republican politicians who are struggling to contain growing skepticism in their party.
“We are protecting the free world, which the Republicans should support,” says a Ukrainian government adviser in Kiev.
“At the beginning of the war it was more difficult because there was chaos,” he says. “Now we can be more specific in our requests because we know what our allies have and where they store it.”
But allied countries are increasingly having to grapple with questions like “Why should Ukraine continue to get a blank check?” and “How does the country plan to win the war?”
The Ukrainian president has tried to answer both questions on the world stage. Now it appears that he has done more negotiating than campaigning precisely to maintain Western aid.
And this in a week in which Kiev fell out with one of its most loyal allies, Poland, over Ukrainian grain.
The ban on Ukrainian imports led to President Zelensky indirectly accusing Warsaw of “helping Russia.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda then compared Ukraine to a “drowning man with whom one can drown together.”
The situation has now cooled down.
2 of 2 Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hug in a photo from the beginning of the year Photo: Portal Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hug in a photo from the beginning of the year Photo: Portal
Even for a seasoned war leader, these are diplomatically difficult times for the Ukrainian president.
The upcoming elections in partner countries such as Poland, Slovakia and the USA are clouding the picture. Some candidates prioritize domestic issues over military support for Ukraine.
“The need to balance military aid and voter satisfaction really complicates things,” says Serhiy Gerasymchuk of Prism, a Ukrainian foreign policy think tank.
“Ukraine must think about promoting its interests through the use of all possible instruments, taking into account the situation in partner countries and the European Union. “It’s a challenge,” says Gerasymchuk.
That’s the kind of question Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin doesn’t have to worry about.
For this reason, Kiev is trying to portray this war as a fight not only for its sovereignty, but also for democracy.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom agreed on the Budapest Memorandum in 1994.
Ukraine handed over to Russia the Soviet nuclear weapons remaining on its soil in return for a promise that its territorial integrity would be respected and defended by the treaty’s other signatories.
Nine years of Russian aggression made this deal look like a broken promise.
Kiev is also trying a longterm plan while trying to better interact with countries like Brazil and South Africa that have so far been indifferent to the Russian invasion.
It is a strategy that did not produce immediate results.
“The truth is that we depend on success on the front,” says the Ukrainian government advisor.
He argues that the media has oversimplified Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
For him, the media focused too much on the frontline theater, where gains were marginal, and less on the significant successes of missile strikes in Crimea and attacks on Russian warships.
Ukraine has always stated that it will not allow anyone to “pull” it into its counteroffensive. As the politics of this war become increasingly intertwined with the fighting, this will be tested more than ever.