THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS – Once the central figure in global forums, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy now cuts a solitary figure at the NATO summit, a leader fighting for the world’s attention as crises elsewhere and shifting political winds push his nation’s struggle to the periphery.

• Shifting Priorities – The summit’s focus has largely been captured by a new defense spending target for members and a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Iran, diminishing the attention given to the war in Ukraine.
• Sidelined Status – Zelenskyy is not participating in the main one-day summit meeting where leaders will formalize the new spending goals, a stark contrast to previous years where Ukraine’s fight was the central theme.
• Frozen Aspirations – Ukraine’s bid to join the NATO alliance, a key goal for Zelenskyy, has been effectively put on ‘deep freeze,’ with U.S. President Donald Trump ruling out the prospect.

The palpable shift in atmosphere underscores a harsh new reality for the Ukrainian leader. While past summits revolved almost entirely around supporting Kyiv, this year’s gathering in the Netherlands sees Zelenskyy on the outside looking in, battling to keep the now four-year-long war from becoming yesterday’s crisis.

A Tale of Two Summits

What a difference a year makes. At the 2024 NATO summit in Washington, the alliance issued a powerful statement vowing to support Ukraine on its “irreversible path” to membership. Zelenskyy was a celebrated guest, the face of a unified Western stand against aggression.

This week in The Hague, the narrative has fundamentally changed. The summit’s agenda is dominated by two issues that have little to do with Kyiv: a new, ambitious goal for member nations to spend 5% of their GDP on defense, and the diplomatic fallout from a surprise ceasefire between Israel and Iran announced by President Trump.

While NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte insists the alliance can handle more than one crisis at a time, the headlines and high-level discussions tell a different story. Has the world’s attention span for the war in Ukraine reached its limit?

The View from the Sidelines

Zelenskyy’s schedule in the Netherlands is a telling indicator of his country’s current standing. He arrived for a series of meetings on the summit’s periphery, but he is not a participant in the core leaders’ meeting. His first official engagement was with Dutch caretaker Prime Minister Dick Schoof, not at the main summit venue, but at a separate residence.

In a poignant sign of the times, during their joint public statement, neither Zelenskyy nor Schoof mentioned NATO. Instead, they spoke of Ukraine’s future within the “EU family.” The conversation, and the aid package announced by the Dutch, focused on immediate needs like drone production and detection systems, not the grand strategic alliance Ukraine has been fighting for. This shift highlights a difficult question: Is practical, short-term aid replacing the long-term promise of collective security?

The Leader and the Lonely Struggle

For Zelenskyy, the actor-turned-wartime-president who masterfully used global stages to rally support, this summit represents a daunting new act. He must now work to re-capture the focus of world leaders whose attention has been diverted. President Trump’s “go-it-alone” diplomatic style, particularly regarding the Middle East, has further sidelined European allies and, by extension, the Ukrainian cause they have championed.

While leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have publicly reaffirmed their “unshakeable determination” to ensure Ukraine’s security, their words compete with the gravitational pull of new conflicts and internal alliance debates. For Zelenskyy, the challenge is no longer just fighting a war on the battlefield, but also fighting a battle against being forgotten in the corridors of power.