Amid Missile Strikes and an Unlikely ‘Bromance,’ Zelensky To Address G7 Summit

After a summer weekend that had Ukraine reeling under a fierce barrage of Russian missile strikes, the country’s president, Volodymr Zelensky, will address the G7 summit in Germany via video on Monday. It is likely that during the address Mr. Zelensky will renew his call for Western assistance in the form of more modern air defenses. In a statement his office released on Sunday, Mr. Zelensky said that on Saturday alone Russia had fired 62 missiles at various points throughout the country, including the capital, Kyiv, as well as the Mykolaiv region, the Chernihiv region, Odessa, and Cherkasy. Artillery and mortar shelling “did not stop” in the Kharkiv region, in the Sumy region, and in the eastern Donbas where, though he did not mention it, Russian forces have now seized all of the beleaguered city of Sievierodonetsk.Mr. Zelensky’s remarks will likely fall on receptive ears, particularly those belonging to the leaders of Britain and France, who have pledged a surge in military support against Russia. The Times of London went so far as to report that Boris Johnson has formed “a Ukraine pact” with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and that the two have agreed to hold an Anglo-French summit to improve ties after pledging to give Ukraine’s military a lift. The show of unity, which Mr. Johnson hailed as “le bromance,” surprised some observers given how Paris and London have sometimes been at odds in their respective approaches to the war in Ukraine and in particular how to deal with its chief architect, Vladimir Putin. On Sunday Mr. Johnson said that he and Mr. Macron emerged from a bilateral meeting at the G7 summit “100 percent aligned” on Ukraine. He added that the pair agreed that the outright defeat of Russia remained the best outcome, but should that fail, the Times of London reported, Mr. Macron said that they would then need to put President Zelensky in the best position to strike a deal.While a bromance between Britain and France may be starting to blossom — one that could be greeted with some skepticism, given centuries of relations that have notoriously run hot and cold — the bigger brother in the pact may be President Biden, who is also attending the G7 summit. Washington has so far done more to shore up Ukraine’s defenses against Russian aggression than any other partner, if to less fanfare. Over the weekend the New York Times reported that an American-led commando network is coordinating the flow of weapons into Ukraine, and that the “secretive operation involving U.S. Special Operations forces hints at the scale of the effort to assist Ukraine’s still outgunned military.”The Times reported that this ”stealthy network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training” are working at bases not just in Germany, which might be expected, but also in France, Britain, and likely elsewhere. And “even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some CIA personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces,” the report added. Britain has more been sharing its intelligence with Kyiv more visibly than has Washington, with its Ministry of Defense regularly posting on social media its assessments of progress on the battlefield, which has if nothing else helped keep the war in Ukraine on the front pages of British newspapers at a time when in some quarters “Ukraine fatigue” is setting in. In the meantime Ukraine needs the wherewithal to fend off Russian missiles, and in some respects Mr. Zelensky’s address can be seen as both plea and tacit acknowledgement that more of that materiel is on its way from the United States. CNN reported early on Monday that Washington will shortly announce the purchase of an advanced medium- to long-range surface-to-air missile defense system for Ukraine. It is the one Ukrainian officials have been asking for, the network reported: known as a NASAMS system, it can hit targets more than 100 miles away. Ukrainian forces will likely need to be trained on the systems.Earlier this month the Biden administration said it would allocate an additional $1 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, as part of a package that CNN said includes shipments of howitzers, ammunition, and coastal defense systems. Judging from the destructive missile barrages Ukraine has endured in the past 48 hours alone, the war-weary country still needs all the help it can get. None of the growing and increasingly coordinated Western support for Ukraine escapes the Kremlin’s notice, of course. The more the West projects unity — at public-facing summits like the G7 and behind closed doors — the more Moscow bristles. Mr. Putin said it “best” himself on Saturday in a meeting with the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko: “In the coming months, we will transfer to Belarus Iskander-M tactical missile systems, which can use ballistic or cruise missiles, in their conventional and nuclear versions.”A declaration like that will add a heavy note to the NATO summit even before it starts at Madrid on Tuesday.

Amid Missile Strikes and an Unlikely ‘Bromance,’ Zelensky To Address G7 Summit

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