Zelensky's Crucial White House Appeal: Ukraine's Future Uncertain

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's White House visit on Thursday might be his last opportunity to persuade a sympathetic American president of his nation's war objectives.

The specific contents of the "victory strategy" Zelensky intends to present in individual meetings with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris remain undisclosed, having been kept confidential until they are shared with the American leaders.

However, according to individuals briefed on its general outline, the plan echoes the Ukrainian leader's pressing requests for more immediate assistance in countering Russia's invasion. Zelensky is also prepared to advocate for long-term security assurances that could endure changes in American leadership ahead of what is widely anticipated to be a close presidential race between Harris and former President Donald Trump.

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The plan, according to those familiar with it, serves as Zelensky's response to growing war fatigue even among his most ardent western supporters. It will argue that Ukraine can still emerge victorious — and does not need to surrender Russian-occupied territory for the conflict to cease — if sufficient aid is promptly provided.

This includes once again requesting permission to launch Western-supplied long-range weapons deeper into Russian territory, a boundary Biden was previously reluctant to cross but which he has recently seemed more open to as he has faced mounting pressure to yield.

Even if Biden decides to authorize the long-range strikes, it's uncertain whether the policy shift would be publicly announced.

Biden typically takes his time in deciding to provide Ukraine with new capabilities. However, with November's election potentially signaling a major change in American approach to the war if Trump were to win, Ukrainian officials — and many American ones — believe there is little time to spare.

Trump has stated he will be able to "resolve" the war upon taking office and has implied he'll terminate US support for Kyiv's war effort.

"Those cities are gone, they're gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn't have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt," Trump said during a campaign speech in Mint Hill, North Carolina, on Wednesday.

Remarks like these have added new significance to Thursday's Oval Office discussions, according to American and European officials, who have described an urgency to surge assistance to Ukraine while Biden remains in office.

As part of Zelensky's visit, the US is expected to announce a substantial new security package, though it will likely delay the shipping of the equipment due to inventory shortages, CNN previously reported according to two US officials. On Wednesday, the US announced a package of $375 million.

The president previewed Zelensky's visit to the White House a day in advance, declaring on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly his administration was "determined to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to prevail in fight for survival."

"Tomorrow, I will announce a series of actions to accelerate support for Ukraine's military – but we know Ukraine's future victory is about more than what happens on the battlefield, it's also about what Ukrainians do make the most of a free and independent future, which so many have sacrificed so much for," he said.

Concern over the future of American support has colored many of Zelensky's visits to Washington. When he visited the White House last year, it was intended in part to apply pressure on Republican Congressional leaders to approve billions of dollars in new assistance.

The aid was eventually passed, but support for Ukraine among Trump's allies is not high. While Zelensky will visit Capitol Hill on Thursday, he won't meet Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.

"This war has ground away at Russia's basic vitality. If you look at the sheer number of casualties killed and wounded among the Russians, a million Russians leaving the country, yes, their war machine is cranking, but their economy is getting hollowed out," US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on MSNBC this week. "So I do believe over time, whether it's Putin or the people around him, they will see the futility in continuing to try to drive at this. It's incumbent on us to help hasten that day."

Seeking to cultivate relationship with Harris

Zelensky's separate meeting with Harris on Thursday – scheduled to take place after the Ukrainian leader has concluded with Biden – indicates his desire to further develop what would be his most crucial leader-to-leader relationship should she emerge victorious.

In the weeks since assuming the political mantle from Biden, Harris and her aides have gone to great lengths to insist that on major matters of foreign policy, there is no divergence between the vice president and the outgoing president.

The ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia is no exception, they say, maintaining that Ukraine would continue to have the US's unwavering support against Russian aggression under a Harris presidency.

The vice president's personal interaction with Zelensky on Thursday would mark their sixth meeting since the war erupted in February of 2022. Just several days prior to the start of Russian attacks in February 2022, the vice president also met Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference, where the two discussed Russia's military build-up around Ukraine and the possibility of the outbreak of war.

In her remarks at the Democratic National Convention last month, Harris was deliberate in taking credit for the US's response.

"Five days before Russia attacked Ukraine, I met with President Zelensky to warn him about Russia's plan to invade. I helped mobilize a global response – over 50 countries – to defend against Putin's aggression," she said. "And as president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies."

Advisers to the vice president say Trump's public statements about the war in Ukraine could not make more apparent the starkly different foreign policy worldviews of the vice president and the former president. (Trump appears unlikely to sit down with the Ukrainian leader, despite saying last week they would "probably" meet.)

Trump's campaign has been criticizing Zelensky over an interview with the New Yorker published Sunday in which Zelensky called vice presidential nominee JD Vance "too radical."

"His message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice. This brings us back to the question of the cost and who shoulders it. The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine's expense is unacceptable," Zelensky said in the interview.  "For us, these are dangerous signals, coming as they do from a potential Vice-President."

Trump alluded to the comments in North Carolina on Wednesday.

"The President of Ukraine is in our country. He's making nasty little aspersions toward your favorite president, me," he said.

There is quiet acknowledgment even within the Biden administration that any reassurances Zelensky may receive from Biden and Harris this week on the US's commitment to supporting Ukraine could all be rendered moot under a different American president.

At the signing of a new US-Ukraine defense pact on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Italy in June, Zelensky was asked what contingency plan he might have for precisely such a scenario.

"If the people are with us, any leader will be with us in this struggle for freedom," Zelensky responded.