(AFP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday arrived in the United States for a crucial visit to present Kyiv’s plan to end two and a half years of war with Russia.
Zelensky will present his proposals — which he calls a “victory plan” — to President Joe Biden, as well as presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
The visit comes after a summer of intense fighting: with Moscow advancing fast in eastern Ukraine and Kyiv holding on to swathes of Russia’s Kursk region.
It also comes as Kyiv has for weeks pressed the West to allow it to use long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia — so far to no avail.
When they meet at the White House on Thursday, Zelensky is expected to try to convince Biden to change his mind.
On the first leg of his US visit, Ukraine’s president visited a factory in Pennsylvania on Sunday that produces badly needed 155mm artillery shells.
“I began my visit to the United States by expressing my gratitude to all the employees at the plant,” Zelensky said Sunday in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The post included photos of him shaking hands with workers at the plant, where he said production had been ramped up.
“It is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail,” he wrote.
He will next travel to New York and Washington.
Zelensky said the coming weeks would decide how more than 30 months of fighting that has killed thousands would end.
“It is now being determined what the legacy of the current generation of states leaders will be. Those in the highest offices,” he said.
In comments before his trip, Zelensky said the United States and UK have not given Ukraine permission to use the long-range weapons as they fear escalation, but hinted he had not given up hope.
“We have had some decisions in the history of our relationship with Biden — very interesting and difficult dialogues,” Zelensky said earlier this week, adding: “He later changed his point of view.”
Moscow has said it considers such a go-ahead as NATO countries being “at war” with Russia.
A close adviser to Biden said this month that the US leader would use his remaining time in office to “put Ukraine in the best possible position to prevail.”
No details on Ukraine’s plan have been made public.
Zelensky said Biden would be the first foreign leader to see the plan “in full” — saying it will then also be presented to “all leaders of our partner countries.”
Zelensky plans to present the proposals to the US Congress, Harris and Trump. The White House has said he will meet with Democratic Vice President Harris separately from Biden, and Zelensky has said he expects to meet with Republican Trump on Thursday or Friday.
Harris has indicated she would continue Biden’s policies on Ukraine, while Trump has been hugely critical of Washington’s massive aid packages for Kyiv.
Zelensky said earlier this week that the plan envisages that “war will not return to us again in an even bigger wave” in years to come.
He has said Kyiv plans to hold meetings throughout autumn and that the “entire plan” will be ready by “early November.”
The proposals, he told the media Friday, envisage “quick and concrete steps by our strategic partners.”
One of those steps, he said, is “related to strengthening Ukraine’s weapons capabilities” while another demands a “clear place for Ukraine in the world’s security architecture”.
Zelensky has also said he plans to invite Russia to a possible second international peace summit in November.
But Moscow this weekend said it would not attend and referred to President Vladimir Putin’s conditions to enter talks: that Ukraine surrender four of its regions.
“I think both are still betting on the possibility of a military victory,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told CNN Sunday.
Russian attacks on Ukraine killed six people — including two children — this weekend, while a strike on the city of Kharkiv wounded 21 people in a residential neighbourhood.
Ukraine said it struck two arms depots in Russia, with Kyiv’s army saying it hit a key ammunition storage base important to the Russian army’s logistics for its invasion.
