Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will seek more support from allies when he addresses the United Nations and meets Donald Trump this week, but behind the scenes Kyiv is quietly preparing for a new phase of the war in which it relies more on itself.
Kyiv's hopes of winning tough new U.S. sanctions on Russia are fading, and a new pragmatism in Ukraine makes Zelenskyy's trip less fraught than some earlier visits to the United States, with lessons learnt from February's White House bust-up.
Frenetic European diplomacy and a Ukrainian expression of regret after February's disastrous meeting paved the way for a resumption of crucial U.S. intelligence sharing and weapons supplies authorised by the U.S. president's predecessor.
Yet intense lobbying has failed to persuade Trump to impose sanctions that would hurt Russia's war economy sufficiently to bring President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, and Ukrainians are sceptical that the war will soon end.
Ukrainians are uncertain about the future
Only 18% of Ukrainians think hostilities can end this year, and a feeling of uncertainty for the future is pervasive in Ukraine, said Anton Grushetskyi, head of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
Putin has secured some recent diplomatic wins, including getting a red-carpet welcome at a summit with Trump in Alaska, and there are signs that Ukraine has been switching gears for a new stage of the war in which foreign support is diminished.
A Ukrainian think-tank that used to study Russia to find targets for government sanctions now does analytics to help the military select targets for drone strikes, said a senior staff member.
The source said Ukraine not only faced setbacks on sanctions and reduced U.S. assistance, but could also lose some other allied support in Europe.
In a sign how Kyiv is trying to turn the screw on Russia itself, Ukrainian long-range drones have hit ports and refineries, prompting a Russian warning of looming output cuts for its oil producers.
'Super important place to be'
Zelenskyy is likely to ask Trump for new U.S. sanctions on Russia on Tuesday, a day before addressing the UN General Assembly.
Kyiv has also been promoting plans for a summit dedicated to Ukraine's Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula, an event that appears designed to push back against discussion of any peace deal involving Crimea being recognised as Russian territory.
Putin says more than 700,000 Russian soldiers are now deployed on the front line in Ukraine, and Russia occupies roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory.
Moscow is demanding all of that territory, and more, before it considers talks to end its war in Ukraine. This is anathema to most Ukrainians.
Ukrainian officials portrayed their work before Zelenskyy's arrival on Monday as pragmatic diplomacy rather than preparations for a make-or-break trip.
"New York is the platform every September. It's a super important place to be," First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya told Reuters.
"I wish it were more expedient, but you will never have easy solutions to the conflicts of this magnitude. So I think that we will not come back from New York, all of us, with easy solutions. And we will continue to work hard after New York."
Battlefield setbacks and heavy losses
Russian forces, have been grinding forwards in eastern Ukraine over the last two years but without seizing the bastion city of Pokrovsk, a target for months.
Though diminished, U.S. support remains essential for Ukraine, and Kyiv's allies have concerns about the depth of its reserves of military personnel.
A senior European diplomat said U.S. intelligence sharing and a new mechanism for Ukraine to purchase U.S. weapons were essential for its forces to be able to hold out.
Zelenskyy has said the first weapons supplied under that mechanism included missiles for Patriot air defence systems and HIMARS rocket launchers, and that Ukraine had so far secured more than $2 billion in financing for U.S.-produced arms.
Ukraine's surer footing on weapons, the senior diplomat said, was apparent from the less urgent tone of Zelenskyy's recent public statements.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine's defence minister from 2019-20, said European strategy had often focused on the idea of providing deterrence to prevent future conflict, but that Putin had no interest in stopping Russia's war in Ukraine and Kyiv's strategy was therefore to deny Russian forces success.
"The strategy is to neutralise Russia," he said. "That would lead to the ability to stabilise the situation and hopefully start a recovery, at least (to some extent), without Russia agreeing to stop the war."
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Houthi attacks target Riyadh amid concerns over Saudi oil supplies, as Iran says it will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until its conditions are met and U.S. commitments are implemented, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Sunday.
Saudi civil defence sent an all-clear on Saturday after issuing alerts for a second time for potential danger in Riyadh and the city of Al-Kharj east of the capital, amid an uptick in attacks by Iran-aligned Houthis on the Gulf country.
The U.S. State Department approved a $2.7 billion military sale to Ukraine for air-defence development upgrades, along with related equipment and services, the department said. Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities reported at least 10 people had died in Russian attacks over the last 24 hours.
The death toll from an overnight Russian attack on the Kyiv region rose to four, including three children, Kyiv regional authorities said on Sunday. A mother and her two 3-year-old children were killed when a Russian drone strike hit a private home, the emergency service said.
Iran's military has threatened to launch sustained attacks on U.S. bases and interests across the Middle East if Washington resumes military action against Tehran.
Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi is under preliminary investigation in France over a suspected conflict of interest linked to the 2024 sale of Ligue 1 broadcasting rights.
Overnight Russian strikes on the city of Sumy, northeast Ukraine, have killed one woman and injured a man, the country's State Emergency Service has said.
Russian parliamentary elections have delivered a comfortable win to the ruling United Russia party, which is closely aligned to President Vladimir Putin. With more than 95 per cent of ballots counted, United Russia has taken 57.83 per cent of the vote, up from the 49.8 per cent it won in 2021.
A powerful typhoon was approaching Japan’s Pacific coast on Monday, bringing torrential rain, strong winds and a heightened risk of landslides across the Kanto region, including Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
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