Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden (AFP) today at the White House, where Zelensky is expected to seek assurances on U.S. security support for his country. Washington’s weakening opposition to Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and its withdrawal from Afghanistan have raised doubts in Kyiv about U.S. dependability, an advisor to Zelensky told the Financial Times.
Zelensky said he plans to bring up Ukraine’s need for a modern military fleet in the Black Sea, where it is waging a seven-year war with Russia-backed separatists. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told Zelensky yesterday that the United States, which has committed $2.5 billion for Ukraine’s defense since 2014, “will continue to stand with [Ukraine]” in the face of Russian aggression. A July deal between the United States and Germany effectively ended U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which Ukraine regards as a security threat. In the agreement, Germany pledged increased support (Politico) for Ukraine’s energy security.
Analysis
“The natural question the [Afghanistan] withdrawal’s unsentimental calculus creates for allies heavily dependent on U.S. security is whether Afghanistan is unique or if commitments to similarly embattled allies may also be abandoned,” the Odessa Review’s Vladislav Davidzon writes for Foreign Policy.
“Moscow’s moves [in the Black Sea], including upgrading its Black Sea fleet and laying claim to the territorial waters around Crimea, threaten to upend the balance of power in the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean Sea and to endanger freedom of navigation—not just in those waters but in waters around the world,”
