Europe’s northernmost countries, inconvenient neighbours of Russia, have rallied around Ukraine represented by President Volodymyr Zelensky: the leader’s blitz to Helsinki is the first stage of a new European tour aimed at recompacting an alliance that has been crucial since Moscow’s invasion. The place chosen is symbolic: Finland is the latest ‘new entry’ in NATO and precisely the knot of the Alliance was at the centre of the meetings first with Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinistö and with election winner (and probable new premier) Petteri Orpo. Then with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Danish Mette Fredriksen and Norwegian Jonas Gahr Store. Zelensky said he was aware of Ukraine’s inability to join NATO during the war, but added that he expects an invitation from the Alliance at the end of the war, a point on which he received full Norwegian support. At the same time, the Kiev leader said he was ‘certain’ that the allies would ‘soon provide the jets’ to deal with the new chapter of the challenge to Moscow: ‘Why am I certain? Because we will implement offensive actions. And after that we will be given the planes’. Denmark gave him a helping hand as ‘the jet issue is still open’. The counteroffensive, meanwhile, ‘is already underway’ as also confirmed by the head of ‘Wagner’, Yevgenij Prigozhin: ‘We see a sharp increase in enemy aviation activity, along the lines of contact and within our front.’ Therefore, the traditional celebrations on 9 May, the anniversary of the USSR’s victory against Nazism, were cancelled in the Bryansk, Belgorod and Kursk oblasts.
