What Zelenskyy's February 2023 European tour signalled for Kyiv
A look back at the diplomacy that surrounded 13 February 2023, from London to Paris and Berlin, and the regional strain visible in Moldova.
What was Ukraine's leadership doing in the days before 13 February 2023, and what did it show about the diplomacy of the war? The answer lay mostly in a rapid run of foreign travel by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while a neighbouring government came under strain.
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, after a December 2022 visit to the United States. In London he met King Charles III and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and addressed members of parliament in Westminster Hall.
The pattern mattered for Kyiv's governance as much as for its foreign policy. A president travelling outside the country twice in the space of a few months, and addressing a national legislature in person, showed that Ukraine was conducting high-level diplomacy directly with its partners' leaders and institutions.
Paris and Berlin next
As reported on 8 February 2023, the London visit was to be followed by a stop in France. There Zelenskyy was to meet President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Bringing together the leaders of France and Germany alongside the British visit meant that three of the major European capitals featured in a single itinerary.
Pressure next door
The war's effects were also visible beyond Ukraine's borders. On 10 February 2023, Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița resigned amid an economic crisis and the collateral effects of the war in neighbouring Ukraine. Her departure, three days before the date covered here, showed how the conflict was weighing on governments in the region.
What the days showed
Taken together, the events around 13 February 2023 point in two directions. Ukraine's president was seeking direct engagement with the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany, and the war's economic and political effects were being felt in Moldova. For Kyiv, the diplomacy abroad and the regional fallout were part of the same wartime picture.
