Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has kicked off a tour of Europe to bolster military and financial backing, meeting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Zelenskyy arrived in London on Thursday for talks on his “victory plan”, a blueprint aimed at ending the war with Russia, which he had earlier described as an appeal to allies “to strengthen us, in terms of security guarantees, in terms of weapons, in terms of our future after this war”.
Starmer confirmed before the meeting that it was a chance to “go through the plan, to talk in more detail”.
Zelenskyy had been due to present the plan at a high-level meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany this week, but the summit was postponed after US President Joe Biden cancelled his visit to focus on Hurricane Milton.
Zelenskyy’s tour comes as the war with Russia drags on with no end in sight, draining government coffers.
Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday approved the country’s first major wartime tax increases to help raise a projected $12bn needed by the end of 2024 for defence.
Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a legislator from the Holos party, said 247 of 450 deputies in the Verkhovna Rada had approved the increase.
The new law, which needs to be signed off by Zelenskyy, includes an increase in war tax from 1.5 percent to 5 percent for residents, higher taxes for individual entrepreneurs and small businesses, a 50 percent tax on banks’ profits, and a 25 percent tax on the profits of financial companies.
Tipping the balance
Zelenskyy says his country desperately needs more aid to tip the balance of the war and secure victory on the battlefield as Russia captures dozens of small towns and villages in the disputed east.
The United Kingdom has been one of Ukraine’s key backers in its two-year-plus fight against Russia’s invasion, committing to delivering 3 billion pounds ($3.9bn) of military aid every year for as long as needed.
Aid from the United States, however, hangs in the balance with the upcoming presidential election in November.
The Germany-based Kiel Institute warned on Thursday that Western military and financial aid to Ukraine could halve to about 29 billion euros ($31bn) in 2025 if Republican candidate Donald Trump wins.
As part of his “victory plan”, Zelenskyy also wants clearance to use long-range weapons supplied by allies, including British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles, to strike military targets deep inside Russia. The US is thought to be resistant over fears this could escalate the conflict.
After the London meeting, Zelenskyy is expected to meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome.
He also has an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Friday morning and will meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on the same day, according to a German government spokeswoman.
