 "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Photo: Reuters)")
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in the United States to present his ‘victory plan’ for the war against Russia.
Zelenskyy will separately meet US President Joe Biden, Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and Republican nominee Donald Trump. He is also expected to brief Congressional leaders on the plan.
While Biden is committed to the Ukrainian victory in the war and Harris is expected to continue the support if she is elected president in the November’s election, Trump has repeatedly skipped making any such commitment and has instead made vague claims about the ending the war before even taking office.
Zelenskyy’s visit comes at a time when the war is at a critical juncture. While Ukraine has occupied large swathes of land in incursion in Russia’s bordering Kursk region, Russia has continued to make gains in eastern Ukraine and has got dangerously close to capturing the regional hub and major strategic city of Povrovsk.
In the wake of the critical point of the war and continuing devastating Russian airstrikes inside Ukraine, Zelenskyy has also been pressing the United States to permit Ukraine to use long-range missiles such as US ATACMS and British-French Storm Shadow for deeper strikes inside Russia. He is expected to convince Biden to win his approval for the same during the visit.
On the first leg of the visit, Zelenskyy on Sunday visited a factory in Pennsylvania that manufactures 155mm artillery shells used by Ukraine. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Zelenskyy expressed his “gratitude to all the employees at the plant”.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“It is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail,” said Biden.
In comments ahead of the visit, Zelenskyy indicated that he may convince Biden to grant the permission regarding long-range missiles. On its part, Russia has maintained that such permission would put Russia at war with the West.
‘Putting Ukraine in best position’
Ahead of Zelenskyy presenting his victory plan, a close advisor to Biden told AFO that Biden would his remaining tenure to “put Ukraine in the best possible position to prevail”.
Zelenskyy has said that Biden would be the first foreign leader to see the plan “in full” and it would later be presented to “all leaders of our partner countries”. Zelenskyy is expected to meet Trump on Thursday or Friday.
Zelensky said last week that his plan envisages that “war will not return to us again in an even bigger wave” in years to come and that meetings would be held throughout autumn and that the “entire plan” will be ready by “early November”, according to AFP.
The plan envisages “quick and concrete steps by our strategic partners”, said Zelenskyy.