What did Kyiv's partners signal in the days before 10 May 2022?
A look back at two reports from 8 and 9 May 2022 that showed diplomacy and regional anxiety moving side by side during the war.
What did the diplomatic picture around Ukraine look like on 10 May 2022? Two reports from the preceding days offer a partial answer, one about solidarity and one about spillover.
On 8 May 2022, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, made an unannounced visit to Kyiv. He was accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly. The delegation met President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy while the Russian invasion was ongoing. An unannounced trip by a head of government to the capital of a country at war was a visible form of political support.
On 9 May 2022, a different kind of signal came from Moldova. Iranians living there were urged to leave the country, because of rising tensions in pro-Russian Transnistria and spillover effects from the war in Ukraine. The call showed that the consequences of the invasion were being felt beyond Ukraine's borders.
Taken together, the two reports show the war's pull in two directions: allied leaders travelling towards Kyiv, and foreign nationals being advised to move away from a neighbouring country where tensions were rising.
