Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy yesterday arrived in Brussels to defend his “victory plan” for Ukraine to EU leaders and NATO defense ministers, with the outlook on the battlefield bleak in Kyiv’s battle to repel the Russian invasion.
More than two-and-a-half years into the war, Kyiv is losing new territory almost daily in its eastern Donbas region and under mounting pressure to forge an exit strategy — which it says must start with ramped-up Western support.
“Now we are on the way to Brussels,” Zelenskiy said in a video posted as he made the trip to Brussels. “I will present the victory plan, our tool for forcing Russia to peace. All European leaders will hear how we need to strengthen our position. We need to end this war justly.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
Upon arrival in Brussels, he said he was seeking to reinforce Ukraine to be “ready for diplomacy.”
“Our plan is to strengthen Ukraine, to be strong and be ready for diplomacy,” Zelenskiy told reporters.
Zelenskiy was to first attend the EU summit, where he was to address the media, with a joint news conference with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte later in the day — wrapping the first of two days of talks between the alliance’s 32 member states.
While calling it a “strong signal,” Rutte on Wednesday said that he was not endorsing Zelenskiy’s “whole plan” — which calls first and foremost for an immediate invitation to join the US-led alliance.
NATO countries have declared Ukraine to be on an “irreversible path” to membership, but the US and Germany have led opposition to immediate entry, believing it would effectively put the alliance at war with nuclear-armed Russia.
US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith on Wednesday said that “we are not at the point right now where the alliance is talking about issuing an invitation in the short term.”
Pressed on the membership question, Rutte reiterated NATO’s party line, saying: “I cannot today now exactly sketch out what the path will be, but I am absolutely confident that in the future, Ukraine will join us.”
Ukraine’s allies are well aware that time is of the essence.
“It’s a very difficult period, the worst since the beginning of the invasion,” said a second NATO diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In addition to membership, Zelenskiy’s plan rejects any territorial concessions and calls for Western allies to lift restrictions on using donated long-range weapons to target Russian military sites.
According to Zelenskiy, an annex — shared with the US, Britain, France, Italy and Germany — involves deploying a “non-nuclear strategic deterrence package” on Ukrainian territory to discourage future Russian attacks.
None of the proposals have so far earned public backing from Western capitals.
For NATO in the meantime, Rutte said the focus was on keeping “massive military aid moving into Ukraine ... to make sure that if ever one day Zelenskiy and his team decide to discuss with Russia how to end this, that he will do this from a position of strength.”
For a third NATO official, the setbacks inflicted on Russian President Vladimir Putin since the invasion began are already sufficient to justify seeking a negotiated outcome — rather than letting the war drag on indefinitely.
“There are various ways to define victory or to define defeat,” they said. “He has lost already because his initial aim was to capture Kyiv, to kick out the government, to send Zelenskiy in exile and to install a puppet regime.”
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