Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, is said to have rejected a previous request for an official visit.
An unidentified Ukrainian official warned the Times of Israel on Sunday that there may be a cancellation to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s scheduled visit to Israel later this month due to information leaked to Israel’s Channel 12 news.
Zelensky was “extremely disappointed,” the person said to the news site, adding that “he wanted the trip to be public when he stepped on Israeli soil.”
As early as next week, the Ukrainian president is anticipated to visit Israel, according to a report from Channel 12 on Friday, which stated that the plans were already in a “advanced stage.”
“Something of a united front of Israel, Ukraine, Europe, and the US against the Russia-Iran axis” was the stated purpose of the visit. According to the network, this would result in a picture that Zelensky would take with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “send a message of the enlightened world under attack, standing against the less-enlightened world, attacking.”
Zelensky’s prior attempt to visit Israel last month, which is said to have occurred in the days after Hamas’ October 7 attack, appears to have been denied, with Netanyahu supposedly telling an official request from Kiev, “Now is not the time.”
Zelensky has tried to tie Russia to the Hamas incursion, but he has not been able to hold onto the international attention and aid dollars his country enjoyed before Israel declared war. Ukrainian government sources told the media that the purpose of the trip was to “boost international support for Israel’s counteroffensive against Hamas in Gaza.”
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In the past, Zelensky has chastised Israel for what he perceived to be inadequate assistance to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, telling Netanyahu that Kiev “expect[ed] more” from its partner, including access to advanced technologies such as the Iron Dome missile system, which Israel had declined to provide.
Although the Pentagon assured reporters last month that the US possessed sufficient armaments, gear, and ammunition for both Israel and Ukraine, one of its primary programmes supporting the supply of arms to Kiev ran out of funds last week, and Ukrainian lobbyists have flocked to Washington to try and maintain the money flow. Even to finance itself, let alone Israel and Ukraine, the US Congress has found it difficult to come to an agreement on a budgetary package as it faces another government shutdown.
Time magazine claimed last week that Zelensky felt “betrayed by his western allies” and that the president’s advisors called him “delusional” for believing that further weapons and funding, on top of the more than $75 billion that Kiev has gotten from the US alone since 2022, would lead to Russia’s defeat.
