Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington on Thursday. Leon Neal/Getty Images
CNN
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the White House on Thursday could be his final chance to convince a receptive American president of his country’s war aims.
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The precise details of the “victory plan” Zelensky plans to present in separate meetings to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are unknown, having been closely held until they are presented to the American leaders.
But according to people briefed on its broad contours, the plan reflects the Ukrainian leader’s urgent appeals for more immediate help countering Russia’s invasion. Zelensky is also poised to push for long-term security guarantees that could withstand changes in American leadership ahead of what is widely expected to be a close presidential election between Harris and former President Donald Trump.
The plan, people familiar with it said, acts as Zelensky’s response to growing war weariness even among his staunchest of western allies. It will make the case that Ukraine can still win — and does not need to cede Russian-seized territory for the fighting to end — if enough assistance is rushed in.
That includes again asking permission to fire Western provided long-range weapons deeper into Russian territory, a line Biden once was loathe to cross but which he’s recently appeared more open to as he has come under growing pressure to relent.
Even if Biden decides to allow the long-range fires, it’s unclear whether the change in policy would be announced publicly.
Biden is usually apt to take his time making decisions about providing Ukraine new capabilities. But with November’s election potentially portending a major change in American approach to the war if Trump were to win, Ukrainian officials — and many American ones — believe there is little time to waste.
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Trump has claimed he will be able to “settle” the war upon taking office and has suggested he’ll end US support for Kyiv’s war effort.
“Those cities are gone, they’re gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn’t have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt,” Trump said during a campaign speech in Mint Hill, North Carolina, on Wednesday.
Comments like those have lent new weight to Thursday’s Oval Office talks, according to American and European officials, who have described an imperative to surge assistance to Ukraine while Biden is still in office.
As part of Zelensky’s visit, the US is expected to announce a major new security package, thought it will likely delay the shipping of the equipment due to inventory shortages, CNN previously reported according to two US officials. On Wednesday, the US announced a package of $375 million.
The president previewed Zelensky’s visit to the White House a day beforehand, declaring on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly his administration was “determined to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to prevail in fight for survival.”
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“Tomorrow, I will announce a series of actions to accelerate support for Ukraine’s military – but we know Ukraine’s future victory is about more than what happens on the battlefield, it’s also about what Ukrainians do make the most of a free and independent future, which so many have sacrificed so much for,” he said.