The long-anticipated first in-person meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and his U.S. counterpart Joseph Biden concluded in the White House on Sept. 1.
U. S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba have both asserted that U.S.-Ukraine relations are better than ever before. Kuleba called the meeting a straight-up success.
In reality, Ukraine got the bare minimum for both sides to save face.
Ukraine got humanitarian and COVID-relief aid, as well as a $60 million military aid package that includes Javelin anti-tank missiles, which it’s not actually allowed to use on the front line.
The only other deal worth mentioning is a memorandum between the state nuclear operator Energoatom and the U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric to make a new reactor for the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The pilot project may lead to a contract for five reactors worth up to $30 billion.
However, as expected, Ukraine got no compensation for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will cut it out of Europe’s gas market and pave the way for Russia to deepen its invasion. The U. S. again denounced Nord Stream 2 while doing nothing to stop the project.
Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO were once again brushed off as untimely.
“We received support, we didn’t receive any deadlines,” said Zelensky summing up U.S. cold response.
Biden’s 2020 election pitch to voters and foreign leaders was to bring America back. Eight months later, the U.S. is hanging up its unofficial badge as the world’s law enforcer.
Prior to Zelensky’s meeting with Biden, a chorus of experts have told the U.S. to increase support of Ukraine. Some said that after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, helping Ukraine would send a message that the U.S. is still firmly behind its international commitments.
But America has demonstrated that Ukraine is a second-tier priority at best, behind Afghanistan, China, Hurricane Ida and a long list of other issues.
And as we see now, the U.S. isn’t ready to help its ally with a variety of problems, which is fully in its power to do.
Of course, the U.S. will always “stand behind Ukraine’s territorial integrity” and “support Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations.” There’s no possibility that the U.S. will simply give up on Ukraine.
Yet Ukraine’s corruption, delayed reforms and lack of concrete results have depleted American patience.
And even if relations between the two countries are indeed better than ever before, they are certainly not good enough to make a substantial difference.
