EU summit turns its eyes away from Ukraine despite a commitment to stay the course with Zelenskyy
The European Union summit showed that Ukraine will be facing tougher times to get all the attention and political, economic and military aid that it wants
BRUSSELS — It was a good thing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had his videoconference address to the European Union summit pre-slotted for the opening session.
Immediately afterward, EU leaders switched off and went to the order of the day — the Israel-Hamas war. They didn't come back to the issue of Russia's war in Ukraine again before Friday's closing day of the summit.
After dominating summit after summit since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Zelenskyy will now find it challenging to get all the attention and the political, economic and military aid that Ukraine wants.
That may extend beyond Europe, too, since the new U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has shown little interest in providing additional money from Congress to support Ukraine. He has said now is the moment “we must stand with our important ally in the Middle East, and that’s Israel.”
Not only have the geopolitics in general shifted, some of the EU politics in particular are no longer as kind to Zelenskyy.
“Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world,” new Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said when he assessed the summit on his Facebook page on Friday. After the summit, he added: «we are ready to help, but not militarily, because I do not believe in a military solution of this conflict in Ukraine.” Zelenskyy wants a military victory ahead of peace.
Slovakia is a nation of just 5.5 million people, dwarfed by nations like Germany and France in a bloc of almost 450 million. But Fico's threats of denying military aid must be seen as more than just
Read more on abcnews.go.com
