On the one hand Zelensky who surprisingly canceled his participation in a virtual meeting with American senators to plead the cause of aid to Ukraine, on the other Putin in the land of Arabia, both seeking aid to improve the fate of the war which also due to the raging bad weather he did not see large movements of troops or advances on either side. He relies heavily on drones.
Meanwhile, “Something happened at the last minute” to the Ukrainian president, were the cryptic words of the leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, the same one who had announced the return to Washington, albeit via a screen, of the leader of Kiev. The reasons why Zelensky was forced to cancel the meeting may be different. But Kiev’s concern reaches the US capital loud and clear: Ukraine “risks losing the war without further US military aid”, is the alarm of the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, who spoke at a meeting of the US Institute of Peace in Washington.
Zelensky’s forfeit may be due to an emergency on the field, he is still the president of a country at war, or to the reflection that, with the stalemate in the negotiations on Capitol Hill on the new 108 billion package requested by Joe Biden, it wasn’t the right time to put yourself on the front line with a new appeal. Only a year ago the Ukrainian president came to Washington in person, welcomed with full honors at the White House and in Congress. But in these twelve months the scenario has changed: the war in Gaza has overshadowed the one in Ukraine, the US House of Representatives is in the hands of Republicans hostile to the “blank cheques” in Kiev and, with the presidential elections approaching, Biden it has less room for maneuver than last year. In recent days Zelensky has sent, in addition to his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian Defense Minister and the speaker of parliament to Capitol Hill to meet deputies and senators. It is possible that it was precisely the results of these talks that dissuaded the Ukrainian president and made him change his plans.
For his part, Vladimir Putin flies to the Arabian Peninsula to dispel the image of an isolated Russia. The Kremlin leader arrives for a one-day lightning mission to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to discuss the situation of the oil markets, the conflict in Ukraine and, above all, in the hope of carving out a role in the complex web of contacts underway in international level to seek a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He will also discuss this with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in the Kremlin. The ability shown by the Russian economy to absorb the blows of Western sanctions, the refusal of most countries in the world – including the two Arab states visited – to follow the US and the EU on this path, and lately the failure of the counteroffensive Ukraine seem to have convinced Putin that the time has come to return to the international scene, even beyond the exchange of summit visits with Chinese President Xi Jinping this year.
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