EU summit turns its eyes away from Ukraine despite a commitment to stay the course with Zelenskyy

It was a good thing Ukrainian Prime Minister 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, the timing alone, anecdotal as it was, underscored a deeper reality: Zelenskyy will be facing tougher times to get all the attention and political, economic and military aid that Ukraine wants.

Not only in Europe too, since the new U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has shown little interest in providing additional money from Congress to support Ukraine and also said that now is the moment “we must stand with our important ally in the Middle East and that’s Israel.”

And it's not only geopolitics creeping up on Ukraine. EU politics too 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.” But military victory ahead of peace is the most precious thing to Zelenskyy.

Threats of denying military aid must be seen as more than bluster from a nation of 5.5 million people in a bloc of almost 450 million where nations like Germany and France dwarf Slovakia. Because of the EU's lavish use of veto rights for member states on most money issues affecting Ukraine, Fico can punch well above his weight.

He only needs to look at his counterpart Viktor Orbán from neigboring Hungary, who has been doing so for years. And if that wasn't enough, Orbán poured more cold water on Zelenskyy on Friday.

Orbán said in his weekly interview on state radio that the EU's strategy for assisting Ukraine in its war has “failed,” and signaled that he may not be willing to approve an EU proposal that would provide more financial assistance to Kyiv.

“The Ukrainians are not going to win on the battlefield, the Russians are not going to lose on the battlefield, and there’s no way that the Russian president will be defeated in Moscow in the chaos of a lost war,” Orbán said.

Moscow is certainly pushing more funds into the war effort. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told lawmakers that nearly a third of government spending next year will go into defense for a total about 109 billion euros ($115 billion), noting that the amount is significantly higher compared to previous years.

After reclaiming some ground during a counteroffensive that began in June, Ukraine forces failed to break through Russia's multi-echeloned defenses to achieve their goal of cutting a land link to the Crimean Peninsula they crave. Offensive operations are now expected to slow down as the winter sets in. All this despite billions in support from Europe and the United States.

With Ukraine funding in jeopardy in the U.S. Congress, Zelenskyy is looking to leave the financial lifeline to Europe open.

By the end of the year, EU leaders have to approve a four-year 50-billion-euro (nearly $53 billion) package for Ukraine to provide budget support, promote investment and help with reconstruction — and here again, the veto powers of member states come into play. There is also a four-year 20-billion-euro ($21 billion) military and security package in the pipeline.

Orbán said that he was unwilling to move forward on financing to Ukraine that aimed to help it win the war militarily, a strategy he said was no longer tenable.

“I was forced to clearly and directly say that the strategy that those in Brussels adopted and brought us into has failed,” he said. “Whatever we do, before we spend the money, there has to be a clear strategy," he said Friday.

It has irked a large majority of EU nations that see Ukraine as a bulwark for the kind of democracy they want to see across the globe. On Friday, Germany again showed what that meant.

This week, Germany handed over a third IRIS-T SLM air defense system to Ukraine after two of the sophisticated systems were supplied over the past year.

“Even if the security policy situation worldwide is further escalating and we are looking with great concern at the moment at Israel and the Middle East, we will not stop supporting Ukraine,” Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. “This war will not be forgotten.”

Others are also asking: If not the full backing of Ukraine, what could Fico and Orbán propose as a viable strategy.

“If we don’t help Ukraine, then what is the alternative, really,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said. “I mean, Russia wins! And so what happens next? Why do you think that you’re safe then?”

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has the answer. “If we don’t stop Putin in Ukraine, he won’t stop there. So it is a threat to all of us.”

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Geir Moulson in Berlin, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary, contributed to this report.