What Zelenskyy's February 2023 European tour had set in motion
A look back at the diplomacy of early February 2023, as Ukraine's president travelled abroad and a neighbouring government fell.
What was happening around Ukraine's diplomacy on 13 February 2023? The day itself sat between two moments: a European tour by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that began on 8 February, and the resignation of a neighbouring prime minister on 10 February.
A second trip abroad
On 8 February 2023, Zelenskyy visited the United Kingdom. It was his second trip outside Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, following a December 2022 visit to the United States. In London he met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and had an audience with King Charles III. He also addressed members of parliament in Westminster Hall in the Houses of Parliament.
The visit was not the end of the journey. As reported on 8 February, Zelenskyy was to go on to France after the UK, where he would meet President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The plan placed three of Europe's major capitals within a few days of one another in the programme of a wartime president.
Trouble next door
On 10 February 2023, Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița resigned. She went amid an economic crisis and the collateral effects of the war in neighbouring Ukraine. The resignation showed that the conflict was shaping politics beyond Ukraine's borders as well as the diplomacy conducted in its name.
Why the dates matter
Taken together, the events of 8 to 10 February show two sides of the war's reach. One was Ukraine's leader seeking direct contact with allied leaders and legislators in person. The other was the strain on a neighbouring government, which gave way under economic pressure linked in part to the war.
By 13 February 2023, the first stop of the tour had been completed and the next was expected to follow, while Moldova's government was in the midst of a leadership change.
