President Joe Biden is leading the world’s richest democracies in sending a beefed-up message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the West will not forsake Ukraine despite political shocks casting doubts over its commitment, according to CNN.

Biden meets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Italy on the sidelines of the G7 summit Thursday, aiming to personally reinforce a promise he spelled out last week on Normandy battlefields where fascism began to crack 80 years ago.

“We will not walk away, because if we do, Ukraine will be subjugated and it will not end there,” Biden said surrounded by the last surviving US veterans of D-Day and the graves of more than 9,000 of their fallen comrades. “Ukraine’s neighbors will be threatened. All of Europe will be threatened. … The autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine.”

Yet Biden’s undertaking will come up against growing concerns in Europe that he will merely be an interregnum between two Donald Trump administrations. The ex-president’s term that ended in 2021 shattered decades-old certainties that the United States will be a stabilizing force in transatlantic affairs and will always secure Europe’s security. And the “autocrats of the world” name checked by Biden will no doubt be watching on Thursday when Trump demonstrates his lock on the Republican Party by meeting GOP House members and senators on Capitol Hill. The show of authority will take place two weeks after Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a crime and less than five months before the presumptive Republican nominee will ask voters to return him to the White House.

Biden’s emotional, political and diplomatic investment in Ukraine cannot be questioned and will be the foundation of his presidential legacy. But uncertainty over the West’s long-term commitment is perennially stubborn. It’s fueled by shifting political currents on both sides of the Atlantic that must worry Zelensky.

In the United States, Trump – who disdains Ukraine, lionizes Putin and cares little for Europe’s security given his endless attacks on NATO – may be less than five months from winning back the presidency. Big gains by far-right parties in European Parliament elections last weekend – especially in powerhouses France and Germany – could create future complications for European Union support for Ukraine. And Putin’s willingness to throw thousands of Russian lives into the meat grinder of the front-line without suffering any political effects back home in a nation purged of political opponents means the possibility always remains that the West tire of the conflict before he does.

But a flurry of new initiatives from the US and its allies looks like an attempt to Trump-proof Ukraine’s Western lifeline and to bring Kyiv closer to Western economic and defense structures should Biden and wobbling G7 leaders who formed the first wave of its support after the Russian invasion get swept away. But no US president can truly bind his successor to a course of action. And the tortuous delays in squeezing the latest $60 billion US aid package for Kyiv through Congress underscore that America’s fractious politics means that future US largesse cannot be guaranteed even if Biden wins in November.

A flurry of new Western plans to help Ukraine

Still, the latest Western plans to help Ukraine send a strong message of intent.

—Biden’s return to Europe Wednesday, only three days after he left, encapsulated his role as the most proactive leader of the Western alliance since President George H.W. Bush. Time on the presidential calendar is a reliable barometer of a White House’s priorities and is closely watched by both US allies and adversaries.

—As he left for Italy, the administration unveiled new sanctions on more than 300 individuals and entities designed to paralyze the parallel economy, which includes plentiful Chinese channels, that the Kremlin has constructed to evade previous US punishments. The sanctions target foreign financial firms aiding Putin’s war effort, restrict Russian access to some US software and information technology. “Russia today has become a war economy,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, unveiling measures designed to raise the cost of that conflict. “Every day, Russia continues to mortgage its future to sustain its unjust war of choice against Ukraine.”

—Biden and Zelensky are expected to sign a bilateral security pact that commits the US to train Ukraine’s armed forces for 10 years and to expand cooperation in the production of armaments and equipment. “We want to demonstrate that the US supports the people of Ukraine, that we stand with them and that we’ll continue to address their security needs not just tomorrow but out into the future,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters on Air Force One. Still, the “executive agreement” would not be hard for Trump to break if he wins power.