Ukraine faces worsening odds on the battlefield and a struggle on the diplomatic front after Biden postpones summit

In May 2023, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, embarked on a whistle-stop tour of European capitals to shore up support from his western partners in the run-up to Ukraine’s summer offensive that year. His tour was a relative success – the subsequent offensive less so.

Fast forward 18 months, and Zelensky has once again been visiting London, Paris, Rome and Berlin in search for western support. This time, he sought backing for his victory plan. But the odds now are clearly stacked against Ukraine on the battlefield. And Zelensky also faces an uphill struggle on the diplomatic front.

The initial plan for Zelensky and his allies had been to convene at a meeting of the Ramstein group. This is the loose configuration of some 50 countries who have supported Ukraine’s defence efforts since the start of the full-scale Russian aggression in February 2022.

With the US president, Joe Biden, scheduled to attend after a state visit to Germany, the gathering at Ramstein Air Base in Germany had been pitched at the level of heads of state and government. It was expected that there were to be some big announcements of continuing support for Ukraine.

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But with hurricane Milton scheduled to hit Florida, Biden was forced to cancel his trip. While Biden’s visit to Germany has apparently been rescheduled for October 18, 2024, the Ramstein meeting remains postponed.

This has deprived the Ukrainian president of the chance to pitch his victory plan to his more important allies. So he has been unable to get them to commit to the support that will be necessary to implement it.

We don’t yet know much about the Ukrainian victory plan. From what has been released or leaked, it appears to boil down to five key demands.

Zelensky wants an accelerated path to Nato membership. He is also asking for a Nato-enforced no-fly zone over western Ukraine and more air-defence systems for the country to better protect its own skies.

Other key elements of the plan involve permission to use western-supplied long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia, the delivery of long-range German Taurus ballistic missiles and significant investment into Ukraine’s defence industry.

Most of these demands are non-starters in western capitals. That much was already made clear during Zelensky’s recent trip to New York and Washington in mid-September.

The Ukrainian president managed to get his US counterpart to authorise US$8 billion (£6.12 billion) in further security assistance. But there has been no progress on lifting the restrictions that the US and other allies are placing on Ukraine’s use of western military aid against Russian territory.

The western alliance remains divided on this. And the US is particularly sceptical of its strategic value.

Similarly, the prospect of Ukraine joining Nato continues to be remote – not least as it would require the consent of all 32 current member states. The Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, has openly stated that he will veto Ukraine’s accession to the alliance. His Hungarian counterpart, Victor Orban, is also well known for his opposition to Kyiv joining the alliance.

More damaging to Ukraine’s Nato aspirations, however, is a similar reluctance in both Washington and Berlin. This has been key in ensuring that the two most recent Nato summits in Vilnius in 2023 and Washington in 2024 only re-affirmed that “Ukraine’s future is in Nato” but failed to attach a clear timeline to it.

Kyiv’s allies need to double down – now

At the end of his meeting with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on October 11, Zelensky secured another €1.4 billion (£1.17 billion) worth of air defences, tanks, drones and artillery, to be jointly delivered by Germany, Belgium, Denmark and Norway.

But Taurus ballistic missiles – top of Kyiv’s shopping list – are not included in this package. While predictable, this was a major disappointment for Zelensky. As was the fact that he essentially walked away empty-handed from his meetings in London, Paris and Rome.

There is no indication that any of these major allies are likely to withdraw their support. But it is equally clear that they are not prepared to increase it decisively.

This was also evident during the visit to Kyiv of the new Nato secretary-general, Mark Rutte, on October 3. Rutte travelled to Ukraine within days of assuming the role to reiterate the continuation of the alliance’s support. But as symbolically important as this was, he merely confirmed what had already been agreed rather than announcing anything new.

The EU did marginally better. On October 10 it was announced the bloc was set to extend the training programme for Ukrainian troops until the end of 2026. The mission was launched in November 2022 and has trained some 60,000 troops to date. That’s about half of all Ukrainian soldiers trained abroad – and three times the number who received training from the US.

The EU’s overall aid to Ukraine now stands at €162 billion since the beginning of the war in 2022, compared to €84 billion from the US. Two-thirds of US aid is military in nature, and with almost €57 billion to date, it dwarfs the contributions by Germany and the UK, the two next-largest donors with around €10 billion each.

These are impressive numbers and there can be no doubt that Ukraine would have lost this war long ago without support from its western allies. Yet, the fact is that what Ukraine’s western partners currently provide is barely enough to prevent a Ukrainian defeat, let alone enable Ukraine to implement its victory plan.

Vladimir Putin has consistently raised his country’s war effort to meet any challenges presented over the course of the conflict. Unless the west doubles down on its support to allow Kyiv to do the same, not only will Ukraine not win this war, it is in serious danger of losing it.

The high-level meeting planned for Ramstein would have been the opportunity for the west to change gear decisively. Ukraine can only hope that its postponement, rather than outright cancellation, means its allies may yet step up to the plate.