Volodymyr Zelensky held the most important meeting this Thursday since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 22, 2022. The Ukrainian president met with Joe Biden at the White House for half an hour, followed by another one-hour meeting with their respective advisors. Previously, Zelensky had met with the Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress, in meetings that revealed the opposition’s inability to decide whether it wants to continue supporting Ukraine or not. The Ukrainian president was also with the Secretary of Defense of the United States, Lloyd Austin, and made a floral offering at the monument to those who fell in the 9/11 attacks in the Pentagon.
Zelensky has described the visit as “critical.” And he has no shortage of reasons. At stake is the $24 billion in military aid to Ukraine that the White House wants Congress to approve for kyiv before September 30. The problem is that this aid is part of a broader budget package, and the Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, are not able to agree on whether they want to approve it or not.
To aggravate the ceremony of confusion, the Senate Republicans are going to support the 24 billion. For that reason, Zelensky appeared yesterday on Capitol Hill between the leader of the Democratic majority, Chuck Schumer, and that of the Republican minority, Mitch McConnell, in an unusual display of unity between American political rivals. But the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, only met Zelensky in private, so as not to upset the ultra wing of his own party, which sympathizes with Vladimir Putin and is close to Donald Trump, who suggested on Sunday that, if he wins the 2024 elections, he will force Ukraine to cede part of its territory to Russia.
Meanwhile, negotiations on the delivery of new weapons systems to Ukraine remain stalled. The US has somewhat softened its position in relation to the delivery of 300 kilometer range ATACMS surface-to-surface missiles, and now does not rule it out outright, as had been its position, although it has not made a decision either. The same happens with the German Government and the eventual supply of Taurus cruise missiles, with a radius of action of 500 kilometers. At least American M-1 tanks will arrive in Ukraine in the coming days, just before fall rains paralyze the front.
Nine months ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the US Congress in joint session to remind Washington that helping Ukraine is “not charity” but “an investment” in global security.
Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House of Representatives, gave him an American flag, compared him to Winston Churchill – the only other leader of a country at war to have addressed the US Congress – and said that Zelensky’s speech had been “one of the best I’ve heard” in his five decades on the front lines of American politics.
Zelensky returned to Kiev with the announcement of the delivery of American Patriot air defense systems to defend the Ukrainian electrical infrastructure, which was being pulverized by Russian missiles and Iranian drones launched by Vladimir Putin’s forces.
Now, another Zelensky has returned to another Washington. There have been no speeches to Congress. There will be no new weapons systems. There will be only one plea: the unlocking of 24 billion dollars (22.5 billion euros) in military aid to Ukraine. But it is also another Zelensky who has gone to Washington because the Ukrainian president has quarreled with Poland, and even managed to irritate NATO with his demands for entry into the organization at the Vilnius summit in July. The Ukrainian offensives of a year ago have turned into a tortuous advance whose progress is measured in villages and hundreds of meters a day – the days when things are going well for Kiev – while corruption in the country has once again unleashed the alarms from Washington and Brussels.
It’s not just that the consensus between the US and Ukraine has deteriorated. It is also that in the US itself, consensus is an endangered species, especially in the case of Ukraine. The shadow of Donald Trump, almost certainly a candidate for the 2024 elections, is enormous, and that reinforces the far-right sector of the Republican Party, which sympathizes with Vladimir Putin and wants to abandon Kiev. About 30 representatives of that group oppose any aid to Ukraine. Of them, 23 have sent a letter to the White House today requesting that they stop supporting Kiev.
Those lawmakers do not make up the majority of the Republican Party. But they are an important sector in an increasingly balkanized formation. Furthermore, the senator of that party Rand Paul – an ultra-liberal who, paradoxically, has more than evident sympathies for Russia – is going to block the aid. He is just political posturing. Paul already did that with the latest Ukraine aid plan. But it is another sign that Zelensky’s star is fading in a Washington in which the only battle that matters is that of November 5, 2024, the day on which the president of the United States will be elected.
And in that battle, Joe Biden’s Government is also gradually changing its position. America’s fearsome M-1 tanks are crossing Europe more slowly than Hannibal’s elephants crossed the Alps on their way to Rome. The Chief of the General Staff, General Mark Milley – a military politician if ever there was one, capable of being a Trumpist, first, and a Bidenist now – has come to say this week that Ukraine will never be able to recover all the territory occupied by Russia. Washington is focused exclusively on China; Europe is a secondary concern. After working for the position for half her life, the State Department’s greatest expert, Victoria Nuland, is not going to be named number two in American diplomacy. That position is going to Kurt Campbell, the coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs at the National Security Council. For the US, the present and the future is Asia, not Europe or the Middle East.