Nato summit: Ukraine looks to get Middle East nations on its side

Parliamentary Speaker sees Washington meeting attended by Arabs powers as key opportunity

Speaker of Ukrainian Parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk during a press conference in Paris. AFP

Kyiv faces “a real challenge” in the Middle East and Africa to provide information about the war in Ukraine, Parliamentary Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk told The National in Washington before the Nato summit.

Mr Stefanchuk, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada parliament, is in Washington for a three-day summit to mark the military alliance’s 75th anniversary, with Russia's war expected to dominate the agenda.

Nato's non-member allies from the Middle East – including the UAE, Bahrain, Jordan and Israel – are expected to send delegations. Mr Stefanchuk emphasised Kyiv would be working with leaders from the Middle East and Africa to overcome the information challenge.

“This is a very important issue … because today, in addition to the issues of our war, there is a very important question of our victory on the international front,” Mr Stefanchuk told The National.

“We must talk [to Middle East partners] about what is happening in Ukraine because these countries are territorially far from Ukraine … we must do everything we can so the whole world hears.”

Analysts have argued that Ukraine in recent months has found itself “between a rock and a hard place” regarding the Middle East.

In the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, Kyiv responded like many of its allies in the West by voicing support for Israel. But as the scale of the war in Gaza intensified, Ukraine's goal of countering Russia's positive relationships in the Middle East and Africa has become more complicated.

Former US National Security Council official Fiona Hill argued at the Brookings Institute in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin sees “Israel as a key pillar for Russian foreign policy in the Middle East”.

“There’s already the framing in the region … that this is a European imperial conflict between Israel and Hamas. Putin’s playing right into that. The irony, of course, is that Russia itself is an empire,” Ms Hill said.

Analyst Iliya Kusa added that “it cannot be said that the pro-Palestinian countries of the Middle East and Africa are watching Ukraine’s position too closely”, he wrote for Carnegie Politika.

“But non-western states could cite support for Israel’s actions as a reason for refusing to support Ukraine’s negotiating position or join anti-Russian sanctions, or as justification for co-operating with Russia.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also said that the war in Gaza has distracted world leaders from the war in Ukraine.

Mr Stefanchuk spoke to reporters at Washington's Ukraine House on Monday after a devastating barrage of Russian strikes in Kyiv killed more than 20 people, with a children's hospital being one of the sites struck.

He admitted he was “emotional” after the attacks, sharing that he “learnt about it from my children in Kyiv, they sent me an SMS text that they heard an explosion … and they said we are alive”.

Mr Zelenskyy will be in Washington this week, where he is expected to attempt to shore up financial and military support and bring Kyiv closer to the Nato bloc, as it works to become a member of the alliance.

Ukraine's forces are, Mr Stefanchuk argued, a “de facto Nato army … following Nato values, using Nato weapons, and performing Nato's main function” as a force against Russia.

“If this is not a Nato army, then what is?”

At the last summit, Nato leaders agreed to fast-track Ukraine’s membership process and set up a high-level body for emergency consultations, but Kyiv will not become a member at least until the war with Russia has ended.

Mr Stefanchuk added that he will also be going to Capitol Hill to meet bipartisan legislators in Congress “to ensure they don't charge their policy towards Ukraine” after victories in the US legislature to pass more funding for Kyiv earlier this year.

He will also have a series of meetings with parliamentary leaders from Nato countries. US President Joe Biden is expected to meet Mr Zelenskyy on Thursday.