Zelensky heads to the White House with advice from Loomer and two objectives

Kyiv, from our correspondent. Lukjanivska metro station looks like a slice of Donbas transplanted to Kyiv. It is one of the Ukrainian capital’s most famous refuge stations and is also one of the hardest hit by Moscow’s attacks. You step out of the metro and see the devastation. Amidst the devastation lies the market, with elderly women who have come from the countryside to sell fruit, flowers and meat; next to the devastation is the McDonald’s, where even the American influencer Laura Loomer had her photo taken and was filmed, naturally with the burnt-out buildings behind her. Lukyanivska is a world away from Washington, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flew to speak with Donald Trump and attend the funeral of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch supporter of Ukraine. Yet Lukyanivska is precisely a meeting point between Washington and Kyiv, and it was Loomer herself who demonstrated this by saying that she never fails to visit this iconic symbol of American culture when travelling the world, and that she was particularly struck by the fact that the Russians had targeted it. Zelensky knows that when speaking to Trump he must be straightforward and direct; he has worked hard and undergone thorough preparation to learn how to communicate with the American president, and indeed he knows that the best way to talk to him about Ukraine is to talk to him about the United States. Yesterday, the Ukrainian president met with the US president for over an hour, and his intention was to address two topics: the war and diplomacy. Zelensky and Trump had left a matter unresolved in Ankara during the NATO summit in early July, when they had met and the US President had promised to grant Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot missiles, which are essential for protecting the country from attacks by the Kremlin’s forces. The latter, aware of the shortcomings of Ukraine’s air defence, have increased the number of ballistic missiles launched against cities, particularly Kyiv: for example, Lukyanivska station was struck by a ballistic missile.

An image is enough, but the last time the Ukrainian president brought photographs to the White House, it went very badly. Mistakes are not repeated, and in his face-to-face meetings with Trump, Zelensky has always tried to present a different side of himself, seeking to strike the right note. He has proceeded by trial and error, much like the Ukrainian army did in trying to work out how to breach Russian air defences to strike at Moscow’s vital targets: oil refineries, fuel depots and arsenals. Trump has never attempted to halt Ukrainian operations across the border; on the contrary, he approves of them. Consequently, Zelensky has come to believe that when dealing with the White House chief, it is better to talk about successes than to highlight wounds and needs. Last week, Zelensky gave an interview to Laura Loomer herself, who is continuing her tour of Ukraine, and according to Il Foglio, the influencer also shared advice on how to deal with the American president, whom she knows well. Zelensky arrived yesterday with a script; what is entirely beyond his control is the relationship between Trump and the Kremlin leader, Vladimir Putin.

Loomer is not only the symbol of her transformation from a Putinist propagandist to a supporter of the Ukrainian cause; she is also the link between two US allies: Jerusalem and Kyiv. Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also at the White House; he too was in Washington for the funeral of Lindsey Graham, who in turn supported with equal determination the defence of the Ukrainians and Israel’s right to exist. Zelensky, long before he met Loomer, had already realised how essential it was to unite the two fronts and has continued to demonstrate that Ukraine, just like the United States, is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is backed by Putin’s Russia. Trump has so far consistently downplayed the assistance that Moscow’s military and intelligence services have provided to Tehran, but has always given a cool reception to Putin’s attempts to present himself as a mediator with the Iranians. The American president knows but refuses to see, and Zelensky is attempting precisely to show him that a way out of the Iranian quagmire may lie via Kyiv, which for four years now has been fighting against Iranians, North Koreans and, to some extent, the Chinese, who are becoming increasingly involved in supporting Russia. Yesterday, the two fronts were also united by the bill passed in the US Senate to impose sanctions on Moscow and all its trading partners.

The Ukrainians are cautious; they know how vital American support is, but they cannot bring themselves to believe that Donald Trump has definitively converted to their cause. Whilst Zelensky is in Washington, the cardboard protests continue slowly and peacefully in cities across the country, with Kyiv serving as the headquarters, where young people under the age of twenty-five are still insistently calling for Mykhailo Fedorov’s return to the Ministry of Defence. They saw in him the revolution for the country, for the army and even for their own lives. The Ukrainian president will have to resolve this rift within society; he has brought it all the way to Washington, and there has not been a single meeting in which he has not been asked what is happening in the country’s streets and within its army. Ukrainians like Zelensky for his public image, less so for his domestic one; as long as external needs take precedence over domestic ones, he will continue to be seen by Ukrainians as the ‘war president’. So far, Zelensky has shown himself capable of being the face of Ukraine in uniform, but there is a lesson to be learnt when speaking with Ukrainians – with society, with soldiers, with politicians: the country’s success does not depend on a single man; it is the result of a nation that argues fiercely but in which the majority have learnt to breathe in unison. One, two, three – we breathe together whilst waiting for Trump to, like Loomer, take up Kyiv’s cause: weapons, Patriot missiles, sanctions and diplomatic pressure against Putin. And if that doesn’t happen, there’s a plan B: to carry on.