Our Best Stuff From the Week of Zelensky’s World Tour

Plus, the debt-ceiling debate and lots and lots on 2024.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy arrives in Hiroshima, Japan to attend the G-7' summit on May 20, 2023. (Photo by Ukrainian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Hello! I hope you’re enjoying the weekend. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is spending his at the G-7 Summit in Japan, where he was given a red-carpet welcome and is meeting with leaders to discuss cooperation and support for the Ukrainian war effort. 

It’s the culmination of a series of trips he’s taken over the last week to bolster support. Some of the leaders he’s meeting with in Japan—U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni—are very familiar to him since he just met with them last weekend. He also visited Saudi Arabia to attend the Arab League summit on Friday. 

“I think we can all be united in saving people from the cages of Russian prisons,” he said at the Arab League summit. “Unfortunately, there are some in the world and here among you who turn a blind eye to those cages and illegal annexations,” he continued, “and I am here so that everyone can take an honest look no matter how hard the Russians try to influence.”

One reason Zelensky is making this world tour is because the support provided thus far by the United States is in danger of running out. As Politico noted this week, “The $48 billion Ukraine aid package that Congress approved in December has about $6 billion left, meaning U.S. funding for weapons and supplies could dry up by midsummer.”

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  1. DavidWG

    I hope Mr. Williamson's next column will contain an update on Emperor Malarky I.

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  2. Prstent

    I appreciate the idea that negotiations are important in raising the debt ceiling but the Republican stance and actions appear to be one of the main problems with a democracy. They know they have been one of the main causes of the rise in debt and they know they have not submitted any budget but feel they can hold the government hostage by their forcing a debt crisis. Whatever happened to rational debate and action? Raise the debt ceiling and get to work with a budget that makes sense.

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      Patrick

      I prefer looking at this beyond R v D.

      The House passed a bill that raises the debt ceiling. The onus is now on the Senate to act.

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    Dave Conant - MO

    You outdid yourself today, thanks for a great wrap-up.
    I note in respect of Sarah's article that Biden isn't necessarily unpopular in the sense that the failed insurrectionist is, there are just a lot of people who don't think an 82 year old should be running for President. Or, for that matter, serving on the Supreme Court, in the Senate, or the House.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Thank you for the round up—-

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  5. Jaybrown

    Rachael, your take on right-wing isolationism is right on. They say "withdraw from the world and focus on China." Except China is focused on the world.

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      DougAz

      Nicely said

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      Dave Conant - MO

      "Focus on China" is a decoy. Most of those folks don't want to admit that anything exists outside our borders.

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      1. Jaybrown

        Oh, they admit it exists, they just don't believe it matters to the US. They're wrong. Reagan was right.

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          Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

          Spot on!

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          Dave Conant - MO

          I'll go with that.

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  6. Dsfelty

    Thank you Rachael, so much appreciate your weekly perspective on current events! Reading TD, and thoughtful comments of many members as well, is helping to keep me sane and my blood pressure manageable during this theatre of the absurd we're living through.

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      Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

      Maybe we can make that our slogan: Keeping your blood pressure manageable since 2019. Should we sell shirts? ;)

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      1. Stand-Up Philosopher

        T-shirts? Screw that. Black-market amlodipine? Yo, count me in.

        My general practitioner is a good, strict, old-fashioned, old-school, East European doctor who will not prescribe *anything* without an annual physical exam. And his exams are... uh, very thorough. (Don't ask.) Which dampens my enthusiasm for the "official" channels. And then I start thinking about ethanol-based blood pressure treatments.

        Seriously, 5 mg/day is all I ask. Willing to pay in small, unmarked bills. Think about it.

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