A few hours before the United States Senate decides on aid for 61.4 billion dollars that the White House urgently demands for Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unexpectedly resigned from speaking before legislators in the closed preparatory meetings.
The change of plans has been interpreted by many in Ukraine as a confirmation that the proposal of President Joe Biden’s Administration to continue sending aid to Kiev has no chance of being approved in the vote in the Senate, where the Republicans They are preparing to vote against.
One of the clearest interpretations has been made from Washington by Congressman Ukrainian opponent Oleksi Goncharenko.
The legislator of the European Solidarity party, of the former president Petro Poroshenko, He recalled that, in both the United States Congress and Senate, Republicans have conditioned the approval of aid to Ukraine on Democrats agreeing to introduce tougher measures against illegal immigration.
Biden’s party does not accept this transaction, so assistance to Ukraine is doomed to rejection, first by the Senado and after the Congressaccording to Goncharenko.
“Under these circumstances, Zelensky’s intervention before senators in a closed session would not have changed anything,” Goncharenko wrote on his social networks.
“What’s more, the failure in the vote despite his message could seem like a defeat for Zelensky, something that no politician likes, least of all someone with the ego of Volodímir Oleksándrovich,” added the opposition legislator, using the president’s patronymic. .
The official explanation for the cancellation
One of the official explanations for Zelensky’s decision not to address the US legislators It was given by the Ukrainian ambassador in Washington, Oksana Markarova.
“The idea had been raised to participate, if possible, in one of the many sessions. Because they were going to talk not only about Ukraine, but also about other internal issues, we decided not to participate,” the diplomat said. “Nothing catastrophic has happened,” Markarova added.
The Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Rustem Umérov, has also offered his explanation, who attributes Zelensky’s decision not to intervene to the urgency of the war context that Ukraine is experiencing.
“There is a war, so the situation can change. But I think President Zelensky would appreciate it and do it (address lawmakers) as soon as possible next time,” Umerov said in an interview with the American conservative network Fox News.
A ‘late’ courtship of the Republicans
Umerov is in the United States accompanied by the head of the Ukrainian Parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, and the head of the Ukrainian presidential office and President Zelensky’s right-hand man, Andri Yermak.
The delegation explores Ukraine’s options to obtain, before the end of the year, a positive decision from power US legislative to the continuation of military and financial aid to kyiv.
In a speech delivered this Tuesday in Washington, Yermak himself acknowledged that there is “a great risk” that Ukraine will be defeated if US assistance is not unblocked.
The stagnation of the front recognized in November by the head of the Ukrainian Army, Valeri Zaluzhni, combined with the uncertainty about the capital aid offered by the US, have opened the door to criticism against Zelensky from opposition sectors.
The mayor of Kiev and old political enemy of Zelensky Vitali Klichó has accused him of selling an excessively “euphoric” account of the war compared to the realism of Zaluzhni, whose conclusions about the “positional” phase in which the conflict would have entered have not been accepted by the president.
The Ukrainian strategy to overcome republican resistance has also been the subject of criticism.
Oleksi Goncharenkothe opposition deputy, has complained on several occasions that Zelensky did not sooner send delegations of legislators from across the parliamentary spectrum to the United States to convince, with a range of arguments, skeptical Republicans of the relevance of continuing to support Kiev.
He former presidential advisor Oleksí Arestovich, who has run as a candidate for when the next elections for the head of state are held, has said that on three occasions Republican senators whom he had invited to Ukraine were unable to meet with Zelensky due to last-minute agenda changes. hour.
The events would have occurred more than a year ago.
Meanwhile, some analysts consider the Republican rejection a matter of internal politics in which Ukraine had and continues to have little margin of influence.
