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President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to be the latest world leader to nudge his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden in a face-to-face meeting into providing Kyiv with more firepower — key to a potential Ukrainian victory — and the crucial right to use it against Russia’s invading forces without restrictions.
The pitch, packaged as part of Zelensky’s “victory plan,” will be made during the Ukrainian leader’s visit to the U.S. this week for the UN General Assembly and his meeting with Biden. Zelensky also hopes to share his proposal with the two contenders for the November presidential elections: Vice President Kamala Harris from the Democratic party and Republican candidate Donald Trump.
The visit comes at a pivotal moment in Russia’s full-scale invasion launched in early 2022, with both sides scrambling for resources.
Zelensky’s in-person plea, which will be made later this week to his most powerful ally and leader of the free world comes as a group of European countries has been pressuring Washington, specifically outgoing President Biden, to boost weaponry for Kyiv and greenlight its strikes deeper into Russia using Western missiles.
“Our clear strategy will be on the table for our partners, for the President of the United States,” Zelensky said in his Sept. 21 evening address to the nation on the eve of his visit. He is expected to arrive on Sept. 22 and will reportedly kick off the trip with a visit to a Scranton, Pennsylvania factory producing artillery for his armed forces.
“The next week can be decisive in many ways for stopping the Russian terror, this aggression, and restoring normal security. For this to happen, the determination of our partners must match the courage of Ukrainians,” Zelensky said.
Zelensky also praised Ukraine’s forces for conducting a long-range drone strike on Sept. 21 that severely damaged yet another Russian weapons depot in the past days, adding: “I want to emphasize that we are doing this thanks to our capabilities, our weapons – without the means that can be provided by our partners and that can significantly accelerate the end of this war by destroying Russia's offensive potential.”
“The answer to the question of when this war will end lies in the question of when our partners' determination will keep pace with what we can do for our defense, for our independence, for our victory,” he added
Dinara Khalilova
Some European officials have shown frustration over Washington’s apparent unwillingness to take the lead in strengthening Ukraine’s hand on the battlefield.
While it was the U.S. three years ago warning its allies of the war’s imminent threat and urging them to back Ukraine, now it is the U.K. and some small European nations neighboring Russia, such as the Baltic states, that have been Kyiv’s strongest allies – nudging Washington in offering Ukraine a wild card.
The hope is to boost chances of a Ukrainian victory, with an upper hand in future peace negotiations instead of bleeding out in a drawn-out war in which it is outgunned and outmanned as Russian forces are increasingly being armed with ballistic missiles from North Korea and Iran.
Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Bloomberg on Sept. 21 that Ukraine’s success hangs on “whether the Biden administration will be braver” during this autumn’s presidential election by boosting support for Ukraine before he leaves office.
Zelensky’s visit comes days after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Biden urging permission for Ukraine to conduct strikes deep into Russia using Western missiles, including the British-supplied Storm Shadows, which have U.S. components.
Late last week, Biden said he looks forward to reassuring “America’s commitment to supporting Ukraine as it defends its freedom and independence.”
But in repeating such general assurances that Biden has delivered many times while drip-feeding weaponry to Ukraine, he sparked only further criticism.
John Sipher, a former clandestine senior CIA officer who served in Moscow, hammered Biden in a reply to his post on X.
“You risk a strategic failure,” Sipher wrote.
“Create a policy of Ukrainian victory and Putin’s defeat. We are not acting like a superpower,” Sipher added.
The warning to the U.S. president came after earlier hopes he would use his lame-duck days to boost support for Ukraine's chances of victory and avoid another tarnish on his presidency on top of the disastrous pullout from Afghanistan.
Natalia Yermak
"Whatever we see of Joe Biden during those two ‘lame duck’ months is whoever the real Joe Biden is,” said Doug Klain, a policy analyst at Razom for Ukraine, a pro-Ukrainian lobbying group based in Washington, D.C., and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.
Will he be “truly unburdened by political calculus and with a sole focus on legacy, and what does he want to leave behind?” Klain asked.
“If he wants to leave behind a Ukraine that is set up for victory, then I think that is the time to really go all in," he added.
The Ukrainian president, speaking at a press conference during European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's visit to Kyiv on Sept. 20, said he hoped for a quick decision from all Western allies to support his “victory plan.” He stressed the importance of the U.S. leadership role, which diplomats have told the Kyiv Independent recently has not been felt strongly.
"Most of the decisions from the plan depend specifically on him (Biden). On other allies too, but there are certain points which depend on the goodwill and support of the United States," Zelensky said.
“The entire plan is predicated upon quick decisions from our partners. The plan is predicated upon decisions which should take place from October to December, and not delaying these processes," Zelensky added.
Biden is “not ruling out” lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons to strike Russian territory, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Sky News in a September interview.
Long-range strikes into Russia top priority
Ukrainian officials have long pleaded for the right to conduct deep strikes into Russia using Western missiles already provided and those they are hoping the U.S. will supply soon.
The Biden administration has weighed the decision for more than three months after allowing Ukraine to counterfire in neighboring Russian territory using some of its smaller caliber weaponry, such as multiple-launch rocket systems.
Ukraine’s hope in gaining permission to also fire Western missiles deep into Russia is that it could, like a slingshot tactic in this David vs. Goliath war, grind down Russia’s combat capabilities from afar — and affect its ability to conduct attacks on Ukraine.
Ukrainian drone strikes are already targeting Russian airfields, ammunition depots, and oil refineries, but Western long-range weapons – such as British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles or U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles – would be a game changer allowing Ukraine to strike more targets more effectively. Ukraine is also hoping the Biden administration will soon approve the supply of the larger stocked JASSM cruise missiles.
Ukraine’s call to lift the restrictions on long-range strikes comes as some independent analysts say Moscow’s troops could be slowly exhausting their enormous Soviet-era stocks in the upcoming year. This offers hope that Ukraine could, with double-downed Western armaments, gain a window of opportunity to hit Russia hard.
Ukraine said that it had already shown the U.S. a list of targets that its armed forces seek to strike with ATACMS missiles deep inside Russia, trying to show the decision’s potential impact. The U.K. has already privately approved the Ukrainian use of Storm Shadow missiles for long-range strikes, the Guardian reported on Sept. 11, citing anonymous U.K. officials. However, London is reportedly waiting for Washington’s approval rather than unilaterally committing to it.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that allowing Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes using Western weapons would “mean that NATO countries – the U.S. and European countries – are at war with Russia.”
Nate Ostiller
Officials in Ukraine and some leaders of some Western allies have described Russia’s warnings and “red lines” as empty scare tactics to intimidate and deter Ukraine’s backers from approving such strikes and providing the weaponry.
“We probably realize now that we have to cross all of these ‘red lines’ and then start forcing Russia out of Ukraine,” Estonian President Alar Karis told the Kyiv Independent in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the 20th annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) Conference in Kyiv.
“We should lift the restrictions on the use of weapons that Ukraine gets,” he said, adding: “We want to defeat Russia, that's for sure … As far as defense (goes), the U.S. should be number one (leading) in this case.”
Ukraine understands that Western allies must reach “a major decision” together and that “there needs to be a collective will and support” for it, but time is costly as every day means “lost lives,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi.
“We cannot sit and wait for decisions for weeks and months because here, lives depend on some of the decisions (made by Western allies),” Tykhyi said at a briefing in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry told the Kyiv Independent that “the negotiations are ongoing” after Kyiv explained the logistics behind the long-range campaign and “we are hoping for a positive result.”
Citing a threefold increase in the Russian use of the powerful KAB guided aerial bombs to about 3,600 in August from the beginning of the year, the Defense Ministry stressed that it is crucial to destroy the bombers since the guided bombs they launch are nearly impossible to shoot down.
“It’s not enough to have long-range capabilities; we need to be able to use them to the full extent,” the Defense Ministry said. “Our defenders cannot be restricted in their weapons when Russia deploys its entire arsenal, including Shaheds and ballistic missiles from Iran and North Korea.”
Additional reporting by Oleksiy Sorokin and Owen Racer.
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