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What did early March 2024 reveal in Kyiv and Budapest?
Summary
A look back at two political moves from the days before 10 March 2024, one touching Ukraine's diplomacy and one NATO's northern enlargement.
What had changed in the politics of Ukraine and its neighbours by 10 March 2024? Two developments in the preceding days stood out.
On 7 March 2024, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former Ukrainian Chief of Staff, as Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom. The appointment placed a figure from the military leadership in a diplomatic post tied to Ukraine's relations with London.
Two days earlier, on 5 March 2024, Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok signed a bill formally authorising the Foreign Ministry to ratify Sweden's accession to NATO. The signature was a step in the enlargement of the alliance and in Sweden's relations with it.
Two separate threads
The two events were unconnected in their mechanics: one was a personnel decision by Ukraine's president, the other a procedural step in a NATO member's ratification of a new entrant. Still, both concerned how states arranged their external ties: Ukraine through a high-profile ambassadorial appointment, and Hungary through the formal authority to complete Sweden's path into the alliance.
On 10 March 2024, both stood as recent, concrete moves in the region's politics.
