Ukrainian president Zelenskyy heads to EU, NATO to seek backing for his 'victory plan'

BRUSSELS (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will seek support from European Union leaders on Thursday for what he is calling his “ victory plan ” to end the devastating war with Russia.

Zelenskyy will address EU leaders at their summit in Brussels before shuttling across town to meet with NATO defense ministers. The EU is a key supporter of Ukraine — a candidate member of the 27-nation bloc — as it fights Russia's invasion that began more than 2 1/2 years ago.

Zelenskyy outlined the five-point plan to Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday without disclosing confidential elements that have been presented in private to key allies, including the United States.

Reaction was muted at NATO, where Secretary-General Mark Rutte said only that he and the allies “take note” of it. He did not discuss when Ukraine might join the world’s biggest military alliance, beyond insisting that it would eventually become a member.

“The plan has many aspects and many political and military issues we really need to hammer out with the Ukrainians to understand what is behind it, to see what we can do, what we cannot do,” Rutte said at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Major points of the plan include an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO and permission to use Western-supplied longer-range missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russia — steps that have been met with reluctance by Kyiv’s allies so far.

A draft copy of EU summit conclusions — a text that will likely be tweaked before publication at the end of Thursday's meeting — reaffirms the bloc's “unwavering commitment to providing continued political, financial, economic, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes and as intensely as needed. Russia must not prevail.”

Thursday's talks in Brussels come as Ukrainian troops are struggling to hold off better-equipped Russian forces, especially in the eastern Donetsk region where they are gradually being pushed back. Kyiv is surviving with Western help, but Ukraine says it is coming too slowly.

At their summit in Washington in July, the 32 NATO members declared Ukraine on an “irreversible” path to membership.

But for now, NATO is in a holding pattern. Its biggest and most powerful member, the United States, is facing a presidential election. European allies expect little movement on Ukraine until a new president takes office in January.

Beyond that, the United States and European heavyweight Germany remain deeply concerned about being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia, and they lead a group of countries that oppose allowing Ukraine to join NATO until the conflict ends.

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Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands.