Ukraine to sign security deal with US in coming weeks
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Joe Biden will sign a bilateral security agreement on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Italy ahead of the Global Peace Summit scheduled for June 16-17, the Financial Times reported on May 30, citing unnamed U.S. officials.
Sources said the agreement has been in the works for weeks amid increasing tensions between Kyiv and Washington.
“We are farther apart than ever since the war started; it is very, very tense,” said one Ukrainian official.
A recent statement from Zelenskyy reflected his frustration with Biden. The Ukrainian president expressed displeasure that the U.S. leader will attend a Democratic Party fundraising event in California instead of the peace summit in Switzerland.
According to the report, Ukrainian officials and lawmakers were instructed to criticize Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping for their absence from the summit. "If they don't come, what is their real interest?" the memo said.
Over a dozen current and former Ukrainian officials and diplomats from G7 countries pointed out several contentious issues. These include a six-month delay in the U.S. Congress's approval of military aid for Ukraine, the lack of progress on Ukraine's NATO membership at the Alliance summit in Washington in July, the ban on Ukraine using U.S. weapons on Russian territory, and Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Other points of disagreement include the sacking of Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi and Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov.
Additionally, there are fundamental disagreements between Ukraine and the United States about what constitutes victory and how to achieve it in the ongoing war.
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