Zelenskyy returns to Ukraine with little aid and a raft of needs

KYIV, Ukraine – With his soldiers fighting in snowy trenches and his cities under attack from Russian missiles, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy returned to Ukraine on Friday from a flurry of diplomatic meetings without major aid packages from the United States and Europe.

Political infighting in Washington and the European Union has blocked further aid to Ukraine. Early Friday, EU leaders conceded they could not pass a multiyear, 50-billion-euro ($54.5 billion) aid package over the objections of Hungary.

Ukraine relies on foreign aid for about half of its federal budget and most of the ammunition and weaponry sustaining its army, meaning any substantial delays in Western support could imperil the country’s ability to fight off Russia.

The EU vote on the multibillion aid package has now been pushed back to January, and the U.S. Congress may not reach an agreement on sending more military assistance before the end of the year, even as Ukraine’s forces remain stalled on the battlefield.

Zelenskyy did receive a glimmer of good news Thursday when the EU approved the start of negotiations for Ukraine to join the bloc, a long-standing ambition of Ukraine as it moves to align itself with Western Europe. “Many people in Ukraine are now in high spirits, and this is important, this is motivation,” he said in his overnight address.

But joining the bloc is a long and demanding process that can take more than a decade, even for Ukraine, which has benefited from an accelerated path to membership. And Ukraine’s failure to secure new aid packages from its allies this week leave it with urgent short-term challenges.

“Our ability to hold Russian forces at the front depends on the ammunition, air defenses and artillery we receive,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a military analyst at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Ukrainian government research group.

Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former Ukrainian minister of the economy, said he expected that the EU and the U.S. would soon approve sending more military and financial assistance to Ukraine. “Ukraine will hold,” he said, reflecting the mood of a majority of Ukrainians who do not believe the West will abandon them.

But Mylovanov acknowledged that longer delays would present Ukraine with major challenges to sustain its fight against Russia and keep its economy afloat, and as they began the workday Friday, Ukrainians lamented the slow progress on securing more support.

“They could give us more help right now, but somehow they don’t,” Svetlana Vasylik, 29, an events manager, said in central Kyiv, noting that opening accession talks with the EU would not result in concrete changes in the short term. She said her father, fighting on the front line, told her his unit was constantly lacking ammunition.

Zelenskyy’s struggles stand in contrast to those of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, whose army is pressuring Ukraine on the front line and whose economy has mostly withstood Western sanctions. On Thursday, Putin exuded confidence in his annual news conference, suggesting that the “freebies” from the West that were sustaining Ukraine would soon run dry.

Bielieskov said Putin was correct in pointing out Ukraine’s dependence on Western support, although he added that Russia had also turned to North Korea and Iran for ammunition and drones.

“But it’s true that there is an asymmetry” between the aid Ukraine relies on and that which Moscow receives, Bielieskov said, adding that “self-sufficiency is beyond Ukraine’s capabilities.”

Ukrainian officials have warned that delays in Western aid would embolden Russia and raise the risk of costly setbacks. That has been a recurring theme from Ukraine since the early stages of the war – that its allies’ cautious approach in providing weapons put it at a disadvantage against a much stronger foe – including when Ukraine was urging the West to provide artillery last year and tanks this year.

Zelenskyy, whose visit to Washington this week failed to secure a pledge for more aid, said he nevertheless expected Congress to soon “make the necessary decision” on a $64 billion military and financial assistance package. Republicans have said they will not approve the aid without a compromise from Democrats on immigration policies and security on the southern U.S. border.

Opposition to EU aid also came from the political right, with Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, considered Russia’s closest ally in Europe, blocking a new 50-billion-euro aid package for Ukraine.

Short delays will not cripple Ukraine’s finances and military. Funding remains at the Pentagon to transfer weaponry into the new year, and previously approved military assistance is arriving. Still, artillery crews along the southeastern front have said they must ration shells.

In the absence of substantive new aid commitments from the West, Zelenskyy welcomed the EU promise to open negotiations on Ukraine’s joining the bloc, which follows through on pledges made soon after Russia’s invasion.

On Friday morning, several residents of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, described the prospect of joining the EU as a piece of good news in an otherwise somber period for the country.

“I feel elated today,” Oleksander Baldiniuk, 43, said Friday morning as he stood near the Golden Gate, a reconstructed gateway that marked the entrance to the city in medieval times. “This war is also a psychological war, and this is good for our mood.”

On Friday, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, played down Ukraine’s ambitions to join the bloc and called the move by the EU leaders “a fully politicized decision” that could ultimately destabilize it. He asserted that neither Ukraine nor Moldova, which also wants to join, met the required criteria, but added that as a European neighbor of the bloc, Moscow was “monitoring it closely.”

Many in Ukraine believe that only their country’s integration into the EU will provide them with guarantees of continued support.

But Ukraine’s accession would present major challenges, including integrating a population with a standard of living that is a fraction of the EU average and dealing with an agricultural powerhouse that could derail the bloc’s Common Agricultural Policy.

Oleksiy Honcharenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, said his country now had “a window of opportunity to move ahead” and reform the country as quickly as possible before future national elections in Europe give way to new governments that may be less willing to integrate a large, poor and conflict-torn nation.

After leaving Washington empty-handed, Zelenskyy attended a summit of Nordic leaders and received pledges of about $1 billion in military aid from Denmark and new assistance from Norway. Zelenskyy said Finland, Sweden and Spain were preparing new aid. On Thursday, Germany announced that it had handed over a second Patriot air defense system to Ukraine.

Maintaining air defense capabilities is pivotal for Ukraine’s military and economy, to thwart near nightly Russian missile and drone attacks that can hobble the army’s logistics and plunge cities into blackouts. Through the week as Congress and EU leaders considered aid, Russia fired multiple volleys of exploding drones, cruise and ballistic missiles.

Falling debris from missiles intercepted by Ukraine’s Western-provided air defenses over Kyiv wounded dozens of people Wednesday.

Nathalie Loiseau, the chair of the subcommittee on security and defense in the European Parliament, said in an interview that a possible decline in U.S. support has resulted in a growing “sense of urgency” in Europe to help Ukraine beat back Russia. “Strengthening our military assistance to Kyiv – that’s what counts,” she said.

EU institutions have now committed more than $90 billion in financial, humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine, according to data from the Kiel Institute – the largest package, ahead of the United States.

“It’s a question of security for us,” Loiseau added, noting that Ukrainian troops were trying to hold off an aggressive Russian regime that one day may turn its sights on other European countries. “Ukraine is our security guarantee.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.