Zelenskyy’s European tour aimed to replenish Ukraine’s arsenal and build political support

With a lengthy shopping list, Volodymyr Zelenskyy started out for Europe. The president of Ukraine will return home with most of his demands met, but without the Western fighter jets he had hoped for to ward off Russian airstrikes.

During a quick three-day trip to Italy, the Vatican, Germany, France, and the U.K., European leaders promised Zelenskyy an arsenal of missiles, tanks, and drones in an effort to replenish Ukraine’s depleted weapons supplies before a long-awaited spring offensive aimed at shifting the tide of the war.

The longer-term goal of the tour was to strengthen European political and military backing so that Ukraine can hold any territory it regains and push for a peaceful resolution.

As the head of the security consulting firm Sibylline and a former British tank commander, Justin Crump said, “They’ve got to show… they’re in this conflict for the long term and that they’re able to keep sustaining this effort.” It won’t be a one-shot deal, I promise.

Over the course of the 15-month battle, Zelenskyy’s persuasive international diplomacy has persuaded Ukraine’s Western partners to send ever-more-potent armaments, from German Leopard tanks to American Patriot missile systems and British Storm Shadow cruise missiles.

Zelenskyy’s rising self-assurance about visiting overseas is seen in his personal advocacy of his position to European leaders. According to Patrick Bury, senior lecturer in security at the University of Bath, it’s also an effort to have his “ducks in a row” as Ukraine gets ready to make a push to retake land seized by Russia.

Bury warned that there could be a decline in support and increased pressure to bargain if Ukraine conducts an offensive and it fails. He may simply be attempting to bind in as much Western support as he can for as long as he can.

The United Kingdom pledged hundreds of air defense missiles and attack drones with a maximum range of 200 kilometers (120 miles) on Monday.

The country of France, where the leader of Ukraine met with President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, announced that it would give Ukraine a large number of light tanks and armored vehicles in addition to unnamed air defense systems.

Zelenskyy also traveled to Germany to meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In Kyiv, Scholz’s initial hesitation to give Ukraine lethal weaponry caused frustration. Germany is now one of Ukraine’s top military suppliers, providing the country with sophisticated air defense systems like IRIS-T SLM and battle tanks.

Germany announced additional purchases of equipment, including tanks, anti-aircraft systems, and ammunition, totaling 2.7 billion euros ($3 billion) during Zelenskyy’s visit.

Zelensky’s plan to create a global “fighter jet coalition” to provide Ukraine with aircraft, however, has come afoul of NATO’s concerns about expanding the alliance’s involvement in the conflict. Ukraine wants to supplement its Soviet-era jets with American-made F-16s, but Washington has refused to supply any.

After meeting British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday, Zelenskyy stated, “We want to establish a jet coalition and I am really hopeful about it. We need to put in a little bit more effort, he continued.

Britain wants to assist Ukraine in purchasing jets, but Sunak said “it’s not a straightforward thing.”

While the U.K. does not possess any F-16s, it has announced that beginning this summer, it will provide Ukrainian pilots with basic training on Western-style aircraft.

When questioned about airplanes, Germany’s Scholz avoided answering, instead mentioning the anti-aircraft equipment it had given Kyiv.

That is the area on which Germany is currently focusing, he said.

There is some diplomatic theater in the flurry of announcements coming from Europe’s capitals. The West regularly supplies Ukraine with materiel, and some of the weapons revealed this week may have already been on the way. Zelenskyy’s journey was intended to gather supplies for both the upcoming offensive and the long term.

With what they currently have, they should be able to launch an offensive, but that won’t be enough to maintain it over time, according to retired French Vice Adm. Michel Olhagaray, a former director of France’s center for higher military research. “And they’ll need time to break the Russians,” said the speaker.

Zelenskyy started his European tour on Saturday in Rome, where he was greeted by Pope Francis and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, who both expressed their support for him in different but equally fervent ways.

Meloni, who referred to Zelenskyy as a friend and emphasized their close friendship, pledged to provide Ukraine whatever it needed to win the war and declared that any concessions made in exchange for accepting a “unjust peace” would be unacceptable for Italy and Ukraine and harmful for the rest of Europe.

Zelenskyy nodded in accord as she informed reporters, “We cannot call ‘peace’ something that could resemble an invasion.”

Pope Francis emphasized the importance of “gestures of humanity” toward the most defenseless and innocent victims of the conflict when he met with Zelenskyy at the Vatican.

Francis has prayed regularly for the “martyred” Ukrainian people, but he has also bemoaned the loss of Russian mothers’ sons. The equivalence and Francis’ reticence to categorically denounce Russia are consistent with the Vatican’s history of remaining neutral in disputes.

Zelenskyy made it clear in a tweet that he didn’t like Francis’ focus on the war’s victims from both Russia and Ukraine: “There can be no equality between the victim and the aggressor.”

It served as a timely reminder that Ukraine is engaged in both a political and military conflict. Many people are hesitant to pick sides in what is perceived as a regional European dispute, particularly in Africa and Asia.

Zelenskyy’s trip to Europe was in part a “weapons shopping tour, that’s clear enough, and it seems to be working very well,” according to François Heisbourg, a French specialist on defense and security issues at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

He continued, “But the other aspect, of course, is determining the political battlefield. For Zelenskyy, politics are just as vital as strictly military matters.