COLUMN: In Ankara, Zelensky says thanks, but never stops asking for more

A message posted after hours of bilateral meetings

At the close of the NATO summit in Ankara, on July 7 and 8, 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a message on X that sums up, in his own way, the delicate balance Kyiv has had to maintain for more than four years of war: say thank you, without ever stopping the asking. After a series of bilateral meetings with allied leaders, Zelensky said he was "grateful" to those supporting Ukraine through "concrete steps," while also raising "ideas" that could strengthen Ukrainian positions and bring a lasting peace closer.

This tone, both diplomatic and insistent, is nothing new for the Ukrainian president. But it carried particular weight in Ankara, a summit that Zelensky himself had warned, before even arriving, must not become a "hollow exercise." That phrase, uttered days before the summit after another deadly Russian strike on Kyiv, set the tone for a diplomacy that refuses complacency, even toward its own allies.

What this message reveals about Kyiv's diplomatic strategy

Word choice is never accidental in Ukrainian presidential communication since 2022. Publicly thanking partners, while insisting on "ideas" still to be implemented, allows Zelensky to highlight gains already secured — new air-defense systems, joint production agreements — without ever giving the impression that Ukraine is satisfied with what has already been promised. It is a diplomacy of conditional gratitude, celebrating every gain while maintaining pressure for the next one.

There is an art to saying thank you without ever sounding satisfied. Zelensky figured out long ago that gratitude, used intelligently, is also a tool of diplomatic pressure. This is not flattery. It is a strategy of national survival.

About twenty meetings in forty-eight hours

According to information relayed by UNITED24 Media and other Ukrainian sources, Zelensky had scheduled nearly twenty bilateral meetings with allied leaders during the summit, in addition to his participation in the NATO Defense Industry Forum and plenary sessions dedicated to Ukraine. This relentless pace illustrates a simple reality: every international summit is, for Kyiv, a rare chance to compress months of bilateral negotiations, which would otherwise stretch across slower diplomatic channels, into just a few hours.

Among the most significant meetings was one with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who announced a new military aid package worth roughly $633 million, including equipment, munitions, and air-defense support. Zelensky also held a meeting of more than an hour with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, their first face-to-face talk since a recent diplomatic dispute over a Polish state honor — a sign that even the sharpest bilateral tensions give way, in Ankara, to the necessity of preserving a common front against Russia.

NATO's final declaration, a symbolic political win

The summit concluded with a final NATO declaration explicitly stating that "Ukraine contributes to transatlantic security" — wording that positions Kyiv no longer merely as a recipient of Western aid, but as an active partner in the collective security framework. Allies also committed to providing €70 billion in military equipment, assistance, and training for Ukraine in 2026, with a pledge to maintain an equivalent level in 2027.

Twenty bilateral meetings in two days is not a diplomatic agenda. It is a survival marathon run by a man who knows that every unused minute in Ankara is a minute lost for his country. There is much to criticize in this war, but not Zelensky's endurance.

The constant push for more anti-missile systems

Behind the diplomatic words of gratitude lies a precise and repeated demand: more air-defense systems, particularly Patriot interceptor missiles capable of countering Russian ballistic missiles. Zelensky arrived in Ankara after a week marked by particularly deadly Russian strikes on Kyiv, a context that reinforced the urgency of his message: "as long as Patriot missiles sit in our allies' stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep 'defeating' residential buildings," he had said before the summit.

During the summit, Zelensky confirmed that a new package of PAC-3 systems was in preparation, while revealing progress on "Freya," the future European anti-ballistic defense system. He also indicated that current deliveries, including through the PURL program, remained insufficient against a Russia now firing twice as many missiles as before, according to his own figures.

Toward Patriot production directly in Ukraine

One of the summit's most significant developments was American President Donald Trump's openness to the idea of granting Ukraine a manufacturing license to produce Patriot systems itself on its own soil. This proposal, if realized, would directly address one of the structural constraints on current Western aid: Kyiv's dependence on limited stockpiles and production chains concentrated in the United States, at a time when demand far exceeds available supply.

It is no accident that Zelensky talks constantly about interceptors and never about military glory. He knows his war is no longer just a matter of courage on the battlefield, but of cold logistics: how many missiles can still fall on Kyiv's sky before an interceptor is there to stop them.

A closely watched bilateral meeting

The meeting between Zelensky and Trump on the sidelines of the summit was closely scrutinized by every Western chancellery. Days before Ankara, the American president had said he had a "good" call with Vladimir Putin, during which he reportedly offered his help in moving toward peace. Trump also indicated he wanted to present his own vision of a peace deal with Russia during his meeting with Zelensky in Ankara — a prospect that worries some European diplomats, who fear a rushed deal could favor Moscow at Ukraine's expense.

At a joint press conference on July 8, Trump described both Putin and Zelensky as "complex" leaders, while claiming there had been "serious progress" toward ending the war. This measured but ambiguous language illustrates the persistent difficulty of reading the true American intentions behind the mediation efforts publicly displayed by the White House.

Humor as a diplomatic weapon

Asked about the idea of traveling to Moscow to negotiate directly with Putin, Zelensky responded with a joke referencing the Ukrainian drones that regularly strike the Russian capital — an unspoken way of noting that Kyiv today negotiates from a position of relative strength on the energy front, even if the conventional military balance still heavily favors Russia. That wry humor says more about the real balance of power than any official statement.

It must be repeated without letting up: Trump remains a necessary ally for the West against Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea. But necessary does not mean predictable, let alone reliable in every detail. Zelensky knows this better than anyone, and his humor in Ankara looks mostly like a polite way of keeping his distance.

Fifty billion in new contracts and a clear line on Russia

Beyond the Ukrainian file, the final declaration of the Ankara summit formalized a considerable collective commitment: more than $50 billion in newly announced arms contracts, with the explicit goal of expanding the Alliance's collective manufacturing capacity. The final text also notes that European allies and Canada increased their defense investments by more than $139 billion in 2025, a substantial rise reflecting a lasting recognition of the threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security.

The declaration also unambiguously reaffirms that Iran must never possess a nuclear weapon, a red line that all Alliance members continue to defend collectively, in a regional context where tensions with Tehran remain a central concern for Western security alongside the war in Ukraine.

New industrial partnerships with Kyiv

The summit was also an occasion to announce several bilateral industrial partnerships between Ukraine and its allies: Germany announced its intention to manufacture Ukraine's BARSA long-range strike drones on its own soil, while Estonia and the Netherlands signed new drone cooperation agreements. Turkey, the summit's host, joined the list of NATO priorities for Ukraine, reinforcing the effort to integrate Kyiv into the European defense industrial ecosystem.

We often measure Western solidarity in billions of dollars announced in press releases. But the real measure is the number of drone- and missile-defense production lines physically set up in Europe and Ukraine. These industrial announcements weigh more, in the long run, than any solemn declaration.

Zelensky insists, the Alliance stalls

During his address on the summit's first day, Zelensky again argued for Ukraine's full NATO membership, thanking leaders who had "clearly stated that Ukraine belongs in NATO, because NATO with Ukraine is the alliance of the future." He directly challenged his counterparts: would it be reasonable to keep out of the Alliance a country and a people with such a level of defensive capability, particularly in drone technology?

This insistence, repeated summit after summit for several years, keeps running into the same political reality: a portion of NATO members, wary of the risk of direct escalation with Russia while the war continues, prefer to postpone any formal membership decision. The Ankara declaration, by calling Ukraine a contributor to transatlantic security rather than a future member on a set timeline, illustrates this cautious compromise between visible support and deferred formal commitment.

An in-between status that satisfies few, but moves forward

This in-between status — massively supported without being fully integrated — reflects internal tensions within the Alliance between countries geographically closest to Russia, who push for rapid integration of Ukraine, and other, more cautious members wary of the implications of a mutual-defense commitment during an active war. Zelensky nonetheless keeps using every summit as an opportunity to keep this question open, refusing to let it disappear from the Western agenda in favor of a negotiated peace that would leave Ukraine in a gray zone of security.

Ukraine deserves its place in NATO. Not out of sentimentality, but because it has, in practice, built since 2022 defense capabilities and a drone industry that already surpass those of several longstanding Alliance members. Continuing to treat it as a special case has become, over time, less strategic caution than comfortable hypocrisy.

Nawrocki and Zelensky, a reconciliation of circumstance

The meeting between Zelensky and Polish President Karol Nawrocki, despite pre-existing bilateral tensions, lasted more than an hour — a strong signal in a regional context where Poland remains one of the most critical logistics gateways for Western military aid to Ukraine. Both leaders stressed that their countries face "a unique and shared threat," calling for preserving mutual understanding despite persistent historical and diplomatic disagreements between Kyiv and Warsaw.

This ability to set aside real bilateral disagreements — the controversial Polish state honor being just one example among deeper tensions rooted in twentieth-century history — to maintain a united front against Russia illustrates a diplomatic maturity that the war has, paradoxically, helped strengthen between the two countries.

Carney and Canada, support built for the long haul

The Canadian aid package of $633 million, presented by Mark Carney as "medium-term assistance" including equipment, munitions, and air-defense support, confirms that Western support for Ukraine is not limited to the traditional major powers. Canada, less often at the center of media attention on this file than the United States or the leading European powers, continues to provide substantial, steady support to Ukraine's defense effort.

We talk a lot about Washington and Brussels when discussing support for Ukraine. We talk far too little about Ottawa, Tallinn, or The Hague, capitals that quietly deliver aid packages that, added together, weigh just as much as the big, publicized announcements.

A full-scale laboratory for defense technologies

Western support for Ukraine is not purely a matter of moral solidarity or the defense of international-law principles. It also gives European and North American defense industries direct access to lessons learned from a high-intensity conflict involving cutting-edge technologies — drones, electronic warfare, anti-missile systems — under real combat conditions that few contemporary conflicts have produced at this scale. The industrial partnerships announced in Ankara, such as Germany's manufacturing of BARSA drones or the Dutch and Estonian agreements, reflect this logic of mutual benefit that goes beyond simple geopolitical charity.

This transfer of know-how runs both ways: Ukrainian industry, forged under bombardment, has developed expertise in fast, low-cost long-range drone production that few Western countries possess at this level of operational maturity. In exchange for financial and military support, Ukraine offers its partners privileged access to this expertise, an exchange that benefits the entire Western defense architecture against the combined threats of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

A moral debt that is also becoming a strategic investment

It would be reductive to present support for Ukraine as a pure act of charity with no return. Every dollar, every euro invested in Ukrainian defense directly strengthens the West's collective capacity to anticipate and counter the hybrid and conventional warfare methods Russia could, eventually, try to apply elsewhere in Europe if not contained in Ukraine. This logic, more than the solidarity displayed in speeches alone, explains the steadiness of Western support despite internal political tensions in some allied countries.

We sometimes forget that supporting Ukraine is not only a matter of moral principle, valid as those principles are. It is also, very concretely, the best insurance policy the West can buy against a future war on its own soil.

The record Zelensky can reasonably claim

At the end of the two-day summit, Zelensky can legitimately say that Ankara was not the "hollow exercise" he had publicly feared before arriving. Between the €70 billion pledged in military aid, the formal recognition of Ukraine as a contributor to collective security, and the American opening on a Patriot production license, the summit produced tangible results, even as full NATO membership remains, once again, postponed to an undetermined horizon.

Gratitude as strategy, persistence as the only certainty

The thank-you message Zelensky posted after Ankara is therefore not a simple gesture of diplomatic courtesy. It is the synthesis of a method proven since 2022: celebrate every gain secured while relentlessly maintaining pressure for more. This combination of gratitude and constant demand remains, at this stage of the war, the only diplomatic strategy Ukraine truly has against powerful allies whose priorities sometimes diverge.

I am often asked whether I believe these summits really change the course of the war. Honestly, I am never fully certain. But I know that a Zelensky who keeps saying thank you, keeps asking, keeps negotiating, and keeps coming back to the table again and again, is a leader refusing to let his country become a closed file. And that, on its own, matters enormously.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

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I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

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