Perhaps the most consequential part of the UN General Assembly week will happen outside the United Nations. On Wednesday, after addressing the assembly plenary, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky travels to Washington to meet with US President Joe Biden and the two candidates to succeed him: Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
But first, Zelensky did something he had so far carefully avoided: aligning himself with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. On Monday, he did so in a symbolic, but not explicit, way. On his first day in the United States, the Ukrainian president traveled to Biden’s hometown of Scranton, in the state of Pennsylvania, to visit a factory of the General Dynamics company—the same company that owns the Spanish company Santa Bárbara—where 155-millimeter howitzers are manufactured, many of which go to Ukraine.
The significance of the Ukrainian president’s trip to Scranton is enormous. On the one hand, Zelensky is saying something that the Biden administration has never been able to explain to the public: helping Ukraine militarily creates jobs and economic activity , because the weapons that go to that country are either produced in the United States or come from that country’s arsenals, in which case they must be replaced with new equipment that also has to be manufactured.
But the fact that Zelensky was visiting Scranton is an electoral issue. Pennsylvania is a state that Harris needs to win on November 5. And it is in rural areas and industrial areas that Donald Trump is most popular. That means that Scranton is part of that battleground. Zelensky’s visit to that town is thus a reminder that Biden’s – and by extension Harris’ – foreign and defence policy is helping the region’s economy.
But Zelensky’s political stance does not end there. On Monday, in an interview published by the New Yorker , the Ukrainian president harshly criticised JD Vance, the Republican candidate for vice president. “Too radical” was one of the epithets Zelensky dedicated to Donald Trump’s running mate. The Ukrainian leader described as “unacceptable” Vance’s idea, recently explained in a televised interview, of a peace for Ukraine that would consist of allowing Vladimir Putin to keep all the territory he has seized from his neighbour and also not allowing Ukraine to enter NATO and, possibly, not even the European Union.
Vance’s peace plan is virtually indistinguishable from Putin’s, which may explain the Ukrainian president’s irritation. Indeed, in the interview, Zelensky resorts to sarcasm when he says, “Let’s see if Mr. Vance reads a little bit of history from World War II, when a country was forced to give part of its territory to a particular person. What did that particular man do? Was he satisfied? Or did he deliver a devastating blow to the continent of Europe, a devastating blow to many nations and especially to the Jewish nation?”
With such a letter of introduction, it is clear that Zelensky’s meeting with Donald Trump, which has not yet been set, may not end up taking place this week, especially if one takes into account that the Republican candidate often professes his admiration for Vladimir Putin, and has insulted the Ukrainian president on several occasions. Trump has insisted on multiple occasions that he will end the war “in 24 hours” , even “before taking office [as president]”. Zelensky, however, does not believe it. “My impression is that Trump does not know how to end the war, although he thinks he does,” he explains.
His meeting with Trump would have the same content as the one he will have on Thursday in Washington with Biden, first, and then with Harris: the Ukrainian government’s plan to end the war. No one knows what the plan consists of, although it seems very likely that it will include more Western military aid, more freedom for Ukraine to use it within Russian territory – especially with regard to missiles and fighter-bombers – and a strategy based on hitting the Russian rear with increasing force, as was made clear last week with the explosion of two huge arsenals located within Russian territory.
But the consensus is that this is just a smokescreen to create the impression that Ukraine has a say in its future . The end of the war – if that is possible – will be decided by the president and Congress who emerge from the upcoming elections on November 5.
And there, Zelensky and Ukraine’s 41 million citizens are playing as much or more than on the front lines. No one in the United States is willing to risk their political career for the future of Ukraine . The idea of ”defending democracy” that both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have repeatedly used has little traction among public opinion. But the Democratic candidate does have at her side the person who is probably the most pro-Ukraine official in the United States at the moment: her national security director, Philip Gordon , which suggests that, if the vice president wins, the conflict will continue in a similar way as it has until now.
Perhaps that is why they have abandoned their proverbial discretion and attacked Vance while he was visiting the electoral battlefield on November 5, indirectly supporting the Democratic Party. It is possible that Kiev has come to the conclusion that if Trump wins, there is no hope left for him to continue resisting and that, therefore, supporting Harris is a rational, if desperate, solution.
Zelensky is also aware that the situation in Europe is even worse. As Germany runs out of gas that Russia was selling at a secret price well below the market price (some experts estimate the discount as high as 60%), the once unstoppable German locomotive is slowing down. The world’s second-largest car manufacturer, Volkswagen, has fallen into a serious crisis and Chancellor Olaf Scholz has had to resort to the most stubborn protectionism to prevent the Italian bank Unicredito from taking control of the largest German bank, Commerzbank.
Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron has been out of touch with foreign policy for months as he tried to save his presidency, but now he is turning his attention to Ukraine again. Although most of Ukraine’s neighbours – the Baltic states, Poland and the Czech Republic – are continuing to help the country in the face of the Russian invasion, their diplomatic weight is insufficient to stop a peace imposed by the United States and supported by Germany. Zelensky therefore knows that the future of his country is at stake this autumn. However, what happens will be decided outside the UN.