WASHINGTON: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met Joe Biden at the White House Thursday to present his wartime “victory plan,” after the US president announced an $8 billion surge in military aid for Kyiv’s fight against Russia.
But Zelensky’s visit was clouded by a blazing row with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that underscored how November’s US election could upend the support that Kyiv receives from its biggest backer.
“Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail, and we’ll continue to stand by you every step of the way,” Biden said as he hosted Zelensky in the Oval Office, after thanking him for presenting the so-called victory plan.
Dressed in his trademark military-style outfit, Zelensky replied that “we deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side by side.”
Zelensky is looking to shore up support for his war effort at the same time as Biden tries to lock in aid for Ukraine, ahead of the white-knuckle vote pitting Biden’s Vice President Kamala Harris against firebrand Trump.
The Democrat pledged nearly $8 billion in military aid in his announcement on Thursday, including $5.5 billion to be authorized before it expires at the end of the US fiscal year on Monday.
Biden said in a statement that the “surge in security assistance for Ukraine” would “help Ukraine win this war.”
Biden also announced Washington would provide Ukraine with the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) long-range munition and called a summit of allies in Germany in October.
The White House however played down Ukraine’s hopes that Zelensky’s visit would achieve his long-held goal of getting permission to fire long-range Western-made missiles into Russian territory.
“I’m not expecting there to be any new announcements on this particular action or a decision coming out of this meeting,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
Harris was due to meet Zelensky separately at the White House on Thursday.
Zelensky also visited the US Congress — where his government said he had also presented his victory plan — and gave a defiant address at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.
But Zelensky’s visit has prompted fresh nuclear saber rattling from Moscow, which has repeatedly warned the West against giving Ukraine long-range arms.
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced plans to broaden Moscow’s rules on the use of its atomic weaponry in the event of a “massive” air attack.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the nuclear threat “totally irresponsible” while EU foreign policy spokesman Peter Stano said Putin was making a “gamble with his nuclear arsenal.”
Kyiv faces an increasingly difficult battlefield situation two and a half years into Russia’s invasion, with Russian forces continuing to push into eastern Ukraine.
But the US presidential election means Washington’s support now hangs on the balance — and with Zelensky apparently at odds with Trump and the Republicans.
Trump had also been due to meet Zelensky during his US visit, but their talks now appear to be on ice.
Trump accused Zelensky on the eve of the visit of refusing to strike a deal with Moscow and once again questioned why the United States was giving billions of dollars to Kyiv.
At an election rally on Wednesday, the Republican called the Ukrainian president “probably the greatest salesman on Earth.”
Republicans were livid after Zelensky visited an arms factory in Biden’s hometown in the battleground state of Pennsylvania earlier this week, with House Speaker Mike Johnson calling for the Ukrainian ambassador to be sacked.
Zelensky also sparked fury in Republican ranks when he told The New Yorker magazine this week that Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance did not understand the war’s complexity.
Trump has echoed many of Putin’s talking points about previous US policy being to blame for the Russian invasion, and has been critical of Zelensky for years.
The United States has provided around $175 billion in both military and economic assistance to Ukraine during the war, despite frequent opposition from Republicans.
Zelensky meets Biden after US unveils Ukraine military aid surge
https://arab.news/223sv
Zelensky meets Biden after US unveils Ukraine military aid surge
- Zelensky’s visit was clouded by a blazing row with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump
- “Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail, and we’ll continue to stand by you every step of the way,” Biden said
UN slams world’s ‘apathy’ in launching aid appeal for 2026
- ‘Prioritized’ plan to raise at least $23 billion to help 87 million people in the world’s most dangerous places such as Gaza and Ukraine
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The United Nations on Monday hit out at global “apathy” over widespread suffering as it launched its 2026 appeal for humanitarian assistance, which is limited in scope as aid operations confront major funding cuts.
“This is a time of brutality, impunity and indifference,” UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told reporters, condemning “the ferocity and the intensity of the killing, the complete disregard for international law, horrific levels of sexual violence” he had seen on the ground in 2025.
“This is a time when the rules are in retreat, when the scaffolding of coexistence is under sustained attack, when our survival antennae have been numbed by distraction and corroded by apathy,” he said.
He said it was also a time “when politicians boast of cutting aid,” as he unveiled a streamlined plan to raise at least $23 billion to help 87 million people in the world’s most dangerous places such as Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti and Myanmar.
The United Nations would like to ultimately raise $33 billion to help 135 million people in 2026 — but is painfully aware that its overall goal may be difficult to reach, given US President Donald Trump’s slashing of foreign aid.
Fletcher said the “highly prioritized appeal” was “based on excruciating life-and-death choices,” adding that he hoped Washington would see the choices made, and the reforms undertaken to improve aid efficiency, and choose to “renew that commitment” to help.
The world body estimates that 240 million people in conflict zones, suffering from epidemics, or victims of natural disasters and climate change are in need of emergency aid.
‘Lowest in a decade’
In 2025, the UN’s appeal for more than $45 billion was only funded to the $12 billion mark — the lowest in a decade, the world body said.
That only allowed it to help 98 million people, 25 million fewer than the year before.
According to UN data, the United States remains the top humanitarian aid donor in the world, but that amount fell dramatically in 2025 to $2.7 billion, down from $11 billion in 2024.
Atop the list of priorities for 2026 are Gaza and the West Bank.
The UN is asking for $4.1 billion for the occupied Palestinian territories, in order to provide assistance to three million people.
Another country with urgent need is Sudan, where deadly conflict has displaced millions: the UN is hoping to collect $2.9 billion to help 20 million people.
In Tawila, where residents of Sudan’s western city of El-Fasher fled ethnically targeted violence, Fletcher said he met a young mother who saw her husband and child murdered.
She fled, with the malnourished baby of her slain neighbors along what he called “the most dangerous road in the world” to Tawila.
Men “attacked her, raped her, broke her leg, and yet something kept her going through the horror and the brutality,” he said.
“Does anyone, wherever you come from, whatever you believe, however you vote, not think that we should be there for her?”
The United Nations will ask member states top open their government coffers over the next 87 days — one day for each million people who need assistance.
And if the UN comes up short, Fletcher predicts it will widen the campaign, appealing to civil society, the corporate world and everyday people who he says are drowning in disinformation suggesting their tax dollars are all going abroad.
“We’re asking for only just over one percent of what the world is spending on arms and defense right now,” Fletcher said.
“I’m not asking people to choose between a hospital in Brooklyn and a hospital in Kandahar — I’m asking the world to spend less on defense and more on humanitarian support.”
