Volodymyr Zelensky understands that time and American political capital are not on his side. As the Ukrainian president arrived in the United States on 22 September, at the start of a critical week of diplomacy, he recorded a video message on board his plane. “This fall will determine the future of this war,” Zelensky said. He is not wrong.
Ahead of another long winter, Russia is systematically bombarding Ukraine’s power infrastructure, and slowly advancing towards the strategically important city of Pokrovsk, an important road and rail hub in the eastern region of Donetsk. The Ukrainian military has seized hundreds of square miles of territory in the Kursk region of south-west Russia, but they need more ammunition and troops to hold the line.
Looming over all this is the US presidential election. In just six weeks, Donald Trump could well be elected as the next president. During his previous term, Trump was impeached for holding up aid to Ukraine. If he returns to the White House, he has threatened to cut off US support altogether, and he would not say during his 10 September debate with Kamala Harris that he wanted Kyiv to win the war, promising only that he would bring it to an end. Zelensky has called Trump’s running mate JD Vance “radical”. And the makeup of the US Congress after November’s election has grave implications too in terms of getting further military and economic aid packages past the Republican Party’s MAGA wing.
Of course, Zelensky cannot openly campaign for the Democrats. A vengeful President Trump, brandishing claims of Ukrainian election interference, would be even more dangerous for Kyiv. The Ukrainian president reportedly plans to meet both Harris and Trump this week, in addition to holding talks with Joe Biden at the White House. But he can also make his case for the need to ramp up support for Ukraine directly to the American public.
This is presumably why his first stop this week was a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania – Biden’s hometown and a key industrial hub in a crucial swing state – where he signed a 155 mm artillery shell and thanked workers for providing ammunition to Ukraine. “It is places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail,” he said. He toured the plant, which has increased production over the past year, with Pennsylvania’s popular governor Josh Shapiro, who Harris considered as her vice-presidential pick. By taking his message to the factory floor in Scranton, Zelensky is making the argument that Biden and Harris have failed to do effectively so far: that supporting Ukraine is not an act of charity, but an investment in US national security and American manufacturing.
Zelensky wants more than continued military aid. He has also been lobbying Ukraine’s Western backers in recent weeks to lift their restrictions on the use of long-range weapons against targets deep inside Russian territory. The Ukrainian president is arguing that his military must have the ability to hit back against legitimate Russian targets if they are to halt the destruction of Ukraine’s electricity grid, and slow the Russian advance. He intends to convince the US and its allies that this war can still be won, if only he is given the resources he needs, and he plans to present his “victory plan” to the United Nations general assembly and his US interlocutors this week.
More than two-and-a-half years into this war, Zelensky knows that he is fighting on multiple fronts. Beyond the bloody struggle on the battlefield, and the heavy toll in Ukrainian lives, he has fought hard to keep Western leaders engaged in this fight, and crucial weapons and ammunition flowing. That task is only becoming harder as the war grinds on and the extraordinary unity that greeted the Russian invasion begins to fracture under the weight of domestic politics.
America is a case in point. When he first addressed the US Congress at the start of this conflict, the Ukrainian leader was greeted by tearful standing ovations on both sides of the aisle. Now he is touring weapons factories in a crucial swing state to plead for more ammunition and renewed American resolve. The coming weeks will determine whether either of those appeals is granted, with the future of this war in the balance.
[See also: Is the West poised to enter the war in Ukraine?]
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