When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress just days before Christmas — his first trip abroad since Russia’s invasion 10 months ago — he described a triumph against the Kremlin in the “battle for the minds of the world.”
“Yet,” he added, “we have to do whatever it takes to ensure that countries of the Global South also gain such victory.”
As the war drags on into 2023, the question of how to broaden the coalition of nations supporting Ukraine is not just necessary, it’s urgent. Success would increase Russian diplomatic and economic isolation. It could limit this humanitarian disaster and, by avoiding even deeper divisions and escalation, may even avert others, including around Taiwan, which China still claims as its territory. President Joe Biden and Western allies can do far more — starting with ceasing to frame the fight as an existential clash between democracies and autocracies.
