When Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Ukraines leader will be hoping for signs of support on at least two key issues: stronger sanctions against Russia and security guarantees in the event of a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow.
In New York, Zelenskyy may have to compete for the attention of Trump, who has a busy schedule on September 23: He is addressing the UN General Assembly, meeting with Argentina's Javier Milei, and holding multilateral talks with the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan.
Zelenskyy, who is to address the assembly on September 24, also is due to attend a UN Security Council session on the war in Ukraine on September 23 in addition to his meeting with Trump.
Crucially, Zelenskyy will want to avoid two turns of events: the possibility that Trump might pressure him to make major concessions to Russia or lay a big portion of the blame on Ukraine for the lack of progress toward a peace pact more than 3 1/2 years since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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The latter is what happened in February, when Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator, blamed him for the war, and berated him in adisastrous Oval Office meeting.
With European leaders present, a Trump-Zelenskyy meeting in the same setting in August went much better. But it came after Trump met with Putin in Alaska and dropped his push for a cease-fire -- a step Ukraine favors but Russia has rejected -- and instead said the sides should aim for a peace deal.
The August meetings produced a glimmer of hope that movement toward peace might begin, with Trump speaking of possible one-on-one talks between Zelenskyy and Putin and a trilateral meeting in which he would advance the goal he set before taking office in January: ending the biggest war in Europe since 1945.
But the Kremlin quickly threw cold water on the prospect of a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy in any location other than Moscow, which is unacceptable to Ukraine.
The past few weeks have brought no discernable progress toward peace and plenty of belligerence from Russia, which haspressed forwardon the front lines, hit civilians in Ukraine with massive bombardments, and challenged NATO withdroneandwarplaneincursions.
