Every September, world leaders converge on United Nations headquarters in Manhattan for a series of meetings on topics ranging from socioeconomic crises in Africa to climate change. For most Americans, the weeklong affair can best be described as a monotonous event, where dozens upon dozens of high-level officials who like to hear themselves talk deliver speeches to the U.N. chamber on the state of the world and what is needed to improve it.
Yet the U.N. General Assembly’s annual meeting is about more than just a bunch of leaders talking into the microphone. It’s also a time when diplomacy is in full force, and informal chitchats are arranged to tackle some of the globe’s most pressing problems. President Joe Biden will be engaging in a lot of chitchat when he’s in New York City this week. So will Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president who has spent the last 19 months lobbying anybody and everybody for military support as his country valiantly resists Russia’s war of aggression.
Zelenskyy is a tireless advocate for his nation. Over the last year and a half, the comedic actor-turned-wartime commander in chief has given countless interviews in the Western media to press his case: Russian President Vladimir Putin is a wannabe Peter the Great who not only wants to destroy Ukraine’s independence but also rebuild the Russian empire. Zelenskyy has traveled to Washington, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, London and Rome to meet with officials and ensure lawmakers in these respective countries understand why it’s imperative to assist Kyiv’s war effort. The most dramatic visit took place in Washington last December when Zelenskyy handed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the gift of a Ukrainian flag from soldiers fighting thousands of miles away in Bakhmut.
The Ukrainian president has been treated like a rock star in the West. Yet Zelenskyy has never been able to garner similar appeal in the capital cities of Africa, Latin America and Asia. (Seoul and Tokyo, two U.S. allies, have been the exceptions.) Whereas the collective West is fully behind Kyiv’s mission of expelling the Russian army from Ukraine, countries as varied as Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia and South Africa just want the fighting to stop regardless of the outcome. To Zelenskyy and his partners in the U.S. and Europe, such a stance is unethical and immoral. But for the Ukrainian president specifically, it’s a stance that nonetheless exists and one he hopes to tame during his short time at the U.N.
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