US said to be "unimpressed" by Ukraine's Victory Plan – WSJ

US President Joe Biden’s administration is concerned that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's plan to win the war with Russia lacks a comprehensive strategy and is focused on providing more weapons and lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles.

Source: The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)

Details: Western officials have said Kyiv's proposal focuses on arms and the easing of restrictions on the use of long-range missiles.

Ahead of the Biden-Zelenskyy meeting, senior US and European officials familiar with the plan's outline said it did not offer a clear path to victory for Ukraine, especially as Russian forces slowly but surely win on the battlefield.

"I’m unimpressed, there’s not much new there," one of the senior officials said.

The WSJ noted that the United States and Ukraine are at a decisive point in the war, without a common vision. The division between Kyiv and Washington comes at a time of disagreements between the US and its allies over the lifting of restrictions on Ukraine's use of long-range missiles to strike Russia.

The central element of the plan is that the US should give Ukraine the green light to use weapons as Kyiv sees fit, Finnish President Alexander Stubb told the media in an interview.

For months, Biden has refused to budge on Ukraine's long-standing request to lift restrictions on the use of long-range missiles in Russia.

The US position has met with fierce opposition from a number of European leaders, who believe that after two and a half years, Ukraine has earned the right to confront Russian troops unhindered. Speaking on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week, some world leaders were visibly disappointed.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, however, has shared Biden's reluctance to allow the free use of long-range missiles.

In his address to the UN, Zelenskyy warned of future Russian threats to Ukraine's energy infrastructure and nuclear power plants.

US and European officials say that behind the scenes, Zelenskyy has been putting forward a maximalist proposal in the hope that the US and its allies will give Kyiv everything it wants.

Senior Biden aides who have travelled to Kyiv in recent weeks and been briefed on elements of the plan are also said to be disappointed by the current state of the Ukrainian framework.

They had hoped to hear something tangible that the Biden administration could support, as it has only four months left in office.

A senior State Department official said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s plan broadly covers Ukraine's needs on the battlefield, political changes within the country, and the economy.

But US and European officials said the most elaborate part of the plan is the first phase – arms-related requests – while other key elements are less specific.

Background:

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
• Earlier, Zelenskyy's spokesman Serhii Nykyforov said that Zelenskyy would have two meetings with Biden during his visit to the US.
• Bloomberg reported that some Western officials were trying to lower expectations of the Victory Plan, saying they did not see it as a breakthrough.

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