Senior Ukrainian leaders were making a diplomatic dash to drum up support ahead of talks with US officials in New York later this week, with a stop in Saudi Arabia on August 27 and a visit to Switzerland planned for the following day.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said he and chief delegate Rustem Umerov were in Riyadh on August 27 to meet with the Saudi defense minister and national security adviser.
Zelenskyy, speaking during his nightly video address, said the Ukrainian officials will travel next to Switzerland on August 28 before heading to New York for discussions with US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
The delegation was in Qatar on August 26.
Ahead of the US meeting, Zelenskyy urged additional measures against Moscow to force it into peace talks.
“Pressure must be applied. Russia must be forced into real steps. Russia must end the war it started and continues. There has to be an answer from them. They must be pressed to the right answer,” he said.
A day earlier, Zelenskyy said that Turkey, the Gulf states, or European countries could play host to talks between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
US President Donald Trump, along with Zelenskyy himself, has been pushing for direct talks between the leaders of the warring countries in an effort to strike a peace deal, but so far Putin has rejected such a meeting, often refusing to acknowledge Zelenskyy’s legitimacy as president.
Many observers have said Putin is seeking to delay any serious negotiations because he believes his troops are winning on the battlefield despite catastrophic losses on both sides.
An Economic War?
On August 26, Trump again played down the likelihood of a quick meeting of Zelenskyy and Putin, despite his pressure, and raised the possibility of new sanctions on Moscow.
“I want to see that [war] end,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “It’s very, very serious what I have in mind, if I have to do it. But I want to see it end.”
“We want to have an end. We have economic sanctions.”
“It will not be a world war, but it will be an economic war,” Trump said. “An economic war is going to be bad, and it’s going to be bad for Russia, and I don’t want that.”
Kremlin officials have said no preparations are under way for a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy.
Russia has pressed ahead with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine with no pause following Trump’s meetings with Putin in Alaska on August 15 and with Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House three days later.
Kyiv has been urgently seeking more weapons from the West amid concerns that Russia is “not interested” in peace, Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, told RFE/RL’s Current Time on August 25.
Zelenskyy said that crucial to his country’s survival are the fulfillment of agreements with Washington to provide further weapons and drones to Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russian forces.
“The main thing is to fully implement all the agreements reached in Washington — our agreements with President Trump, above all in the defense sphere…Much of Ukraine’s long-term security depends on relations with America.”
The United States and European nations have supplied Ukraine with billions of dollars’ worth of aid and military hardware since the start of the full-scale invasion, although Trump has pressed Europe to take over much of the burden.
Trump has struck a deal with Western allies in which NATO members purchase US weapons for use by Kyiv, thus easing financial costs for Washinton.
New Ukrainian Ambassador
Ahead of the New York meeting, Zelenskyy announced he had appointed a new ambassador to the United States. Olha Stefanishyna, 39, a former cabinet minister, will replace Oksana Markarova, who has held the position for six years.
Stefanishyna, as justice minster, previously played a key role in Ukraine’s efforts to integrate itself into Western institutions.
It wasn’t immediately clear if any embassy officials will participate in this week’s meetings.
Separately, Ukraine on August 27 said it is looking to leverage the battlefield intelligence it has developed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of February 2022 to strengthen its position with allies as it seeks additional military assistance.
Mykhaylo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, told Reuters that “The data we have is priceless for any country.”
“I think this is one of the ‘cards’, as our colleagues and partners say, to build win-win relations,” Fedorov added – a reference to earlier remarks by Trump, who told Zelenskyy in a disastrous Oval Office meeting earlier this year that “you don’t have the cards” in the war with Russia.
“The demand for the data is incredibly high, but at the moment we are forming policy how to organize this process correctly,” Fedorov said.
