Posted on Sep 1, 2021 at 6:45 PMUpdated Sep 1, 2021, 7:21 PM
Long planned, this is an official trip of particular importance for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. As the Americans hastily withdraw from Afghanistan, he has come to seek assurances of Washington’s support for Russia, following the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Earlier this year, exercises drove more than 100,000 Russian troops to its border and into Crimea, before they withdrew in April.
Kiev is determined to bring its problems back to the international stage. On August 23, just before celebrating the 30 years of Ukraine’s independence, a major international conference “Crimean Platform” was held to recall the need to preserve its territorial integrity with some forty countries. The next day, a large military parade in Kiev marked the thirtieth anniversary.
Military aid
In Washington, the Ukrainian president came in particular to explain that he needs to “modernize his fleet”. The country believes that the Russians are forcing the movements of its ships in the Kerch Strait, which separates the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
The support of the United States is acquired in the bilateral relationship. The Pentagon has pledged $ 60 million in additional military aid, especially in the form of Javelin anti-tank missile devices. “We will continue to be by your side in the face of this Russian aggression,” said US Secretary of State for Defense Lloyd Austin, who pledged to ask Russia “to stop perpetuating the conflict” in eastern Ukraine and leaving Crimea.
According to a White House official quoted by AFP, the United States has allocated since 2014 some 2.5 billion dollars in aid to the Ukrainian armed forces, including more than 400 million in 2021 alone. Ukraine would have received “as much attention from this administration, and perhaps even more attention, than any other European country,” he explains. Volodymyr Zelenslky is also the second Western leader received at the White House – after Angela Merkel – since the election of Joe Biden. But the latter also met with the Russian president in June in Geneva.
However, the American decision not to exercise the decided sanctions and to let the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline be completed to satisfy Germany was disappointing. The Russians are required to continue shipping gas through Ukraine until 2024, but then the new pipeline will deprive Kiev of billions of euros in annual transit revenue.
The United States has a pragmatic approach vis-à-vis Moscow: it is necessary to mark the red lines but to avoid confrontations to avoid an aggressive one-upmanship. Hence this balancing act, between economic and military support for Kiev (hoping, in exchange, of a decrease in corruption) and some renouncements vis-à-vis Russia. A line that Volodymyr Zelensky will have trouble bending when he meets Joe Biden on Wednesday evening. “The bilateral relationship with Ukraine is not threatened,” underlines Alexandra Goujon, lecturer at the University of Burgundy. But the United States is seeking to relax its overall policy. And we must remember that the Democratic position is not interventionist. This explains why “Zelensky recalls that this conflict is an international threat to global security.”
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