Ukraine suffers four diplomatic nightmares in one week (2024)

Ukraine shouldn't let the recent diplomatic setbacks faced by Volodymyr Zelensky "detract from the bigger picture" of maintaining global support to fight Russian aggression, a former British diplomat to Moscow has told Newsweek.

The Ukrainian president's visit to North America coincided with diplomatic complications for Kyiv. While he got a renewed commitment from the U.S of $325 million in military aid, his trip came amid a spat with Poland and a Nazi veteran's appearance in Canada's parliament.

Since his return, there have been further claims about Ukrainian links to a missile that landed in Poland and the sabotage of a pipeline between Russia and Germany.

It all started well last week, when he met President Joe Biden at the White House, as well as members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who reiterated the need for military and moral support for Kyiv against Russia.

But Zelensky's trip north of the U.S. border went a tad south, when Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian accused of serving in a Nazi unit during World War II, was praised at a parliamentary meeting in Ottawa on September 22.

It was revealed that Hunka had been invited to parliament, despite serving as a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as the First Ukrainian Division or the Galicia Division commanded by Nazis.

The speaker of Canada's House of Commons, Anthony Rota, resigned over the scandal, which he said was due to an error. While not Zelensky's fault, Kremlin outlets used it to justify its narrative that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a fight against Nazism.

Meanwhile, Zelensky has been facing problems closer to home, as a spat with Poland deepened when Warsaw said it would not suspend an EU ban on Ukrainian agricultural products that Brussels had imposed to protect European farmers.

Ukraine filed a lawsuit against Poland, as well as Slovakia and Hungary, but the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, accused Zelensky of insulting Poland by telling the United Nations General Assembly how some of Kyiv's allies are demonstrating political "theater."

Morawiecki also said that Warsaw would "no longer transfer weapons to Ukraine, although this was rowed back by Poland's president, Andrzej Duda, to refer to only new weaponry. But the dispute was at odds with the wholehearted military and financial support Warsaw had previously shown Kyiv in fighting Russian aggression.

"Given the war is set for the long term, it's not in Ukraine's interest to let these spats detract from the bigger picture, especially with elections due in Poland, Slovakia and elsewhere," said the former British defense attaché to Moscow, John Foreman.

"I don't think Ukrainian diplomacy has been derailed, but recent events show the need to address irritants in private rather than let them gain a head of steam in public."

Zelensky appeared to try to repair ties by giving awards to two Polish humanitarian volunteers who had helped Ukraine, Bianka Zalewska from the U.S.-owned television network TVN, and combat medic Damian Duda.

Foreman said that, broadly speaking, Ukrainian diplomatic efforts over the past 18 months have been successful. These include painting the Russian invasion as a threat to European and international security and securing considerable international military, economic and political support.

"I think the fact that international VIPs still visit Kyiv and not Moscow, is a sign that Ukraine diplomacy is still effective. But no time to rest on their laurels as the war enters its second year," he said.

However, adding to the difficulty between Kyiv and Warsaw could be the conclusion by Polish experts that a missile that killed two people at a grain facility in Przewodow last November was fired by Ukraine, according to the Rzeczpospolita newspaper.

The explosion of the S-300 5-W-55 missile on the territory of the NATO member initially sparked fears the war in Ukraine could spiral into a wider conflict by triggering the alliance's mutual defense clause.

The Polish newspaper said on Tuesday that Russian positions were in a place from which no Russian missile could have reached the town in the south of Poland. Kyiv denied it was its missile and Rzeczpospolita reported that the Ukrainian side had not made any evidence available to Polish investigators.

Meanwhile, there could be a further problem for Kyiv with newly published claims about Ukrainian involvement in possible sabotage on September 26, 2022, in which the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines along the floor of the Baltic Sea were blown up.

There has been speculation that the U.S. or Russia was behind the attack. A New York Times report cited U.S. intelligence suggesting that a pro-Ukrainian group, not necessarily with links to Zelensky, was to blame. Ukraine has denied any involvement.

But the German newspaper Zeit reported that German investigators would like to talk to a 41-year-old Ukrainian businessman it named as Rustem A. He is said to have connections with the Polish shell company Feeria Lwowa, which paid for the hire of the yacht believed to have been involved in the attack on the pipelines between Russia and Germany.