Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion by meeting with Western leaders who reaffirmed support for Kyiv, even as the embattled nation’s troops on the front lines said feel they’ve been forgotten by their allies.
Prime Ministers Giorgia Meloni of Italy and Justin Trudeau of Canada traveled to Ukraine to ink security deals with the war-rocked nation and quell concerns that the West is losing interest in the bloody battle.
“The message I want to send today to … all the Ukrainian people is that they are not alone. I want you to know that we are deeply grateful,” Meloni said while signing a 10-year defense pact with Zelensky.
Trudeau signed a similar deal and promised to back Ukraine this year with $2.25 billion in financial and military support.
Zelensky took the foreign leaders, along with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Crooto, to view the remains of the Homostel airport outside Kyiv, where at the start of the war Russia attempted to send in paratroopers to seize the nearby capital.
“Two years ago we met enemy troopers here with fire, and two years later, we are meeting our friends, our partners, here,” Zelensky said in a speech.
“Any normal person wants the war to end. But none of us will allow our Ukraine to end,” he added. “The word ‘independent’ will always stand next to the word ‘Ukraine’ in future history.”
It’s unclear how much comfort the fresh promises of support will provide Ukraine’s exhausted troops on the 620-mile front line as they endure an onslaught from a Russian military that is much larger and better supplied.
Ukraine’s military currently has a personnel shortage of 25% on average across all of its brigades, according to lawmakers, while troops are rationing artillery shells amid unfulfilled promises of military aid — including over $60 billion from the United States.
“I know the war has been going on for a long time, but we are fighting for the West against our common enemy,” an infantry sergeant told The Kyiv Independent from just outside the eastern city of Avdiivka, where Ukrainian troops retreated last week, handing Russia its biggest victory in nine months.
“It is impossible to keep fighting like that; we are losing too many,” the sergeant said. “The situation is serious.”
Zelensky has warned that Russia isn’t guaranteed to stop its rampage with victory over Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, has rebuffed such claims and described the invasion as a broader battle with the United States, which he believes aims to destroy Russia.
During a flag-raising ceremony for Ukraine at Bowling Green Park in Lower Manhattan Saturday, Mayor Eric Adams compared Russia’s invasion two years ago to what New York and the rest of the United States endured in the wake of 9/11.
“We saw right here our country ripped apart from terrorist action, we saw our resiliency,” Adams said. “That is what the Ukrainian people represent. You represent resiliency…You are representing democracy across America.”
With Post wires.