EU foreign ministers convened in Kyiv for their first ever meeting outside the bloc on Monday, broadcasting their support after a pro-Russian candidate won an election in Slovakia and the U.S. Congress left Ukraine war aid out of its spending bill.

Kyiv brushed off the wobbles on both sides of the Atlantic, especially the prospect that the U.S. Congressional vote, which excluded aid to Ukraine from an emergency bill to prevent a government shutdown, represented a deeper change in policy.

“We don’t feel that the U.S support has been shattered… because the United States understands that what is at stake in Ukraine is much bigger than just Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters as he greeted the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

As for the election victory of pro-Russian Slovakian former Prime Minister Robert Fico, Kuleba said it was “too early to judge” the impact on politics there, noting that a new leader would still have to form a coalition.

Monday’s meeting in Kyiv was touted by Borrell as an historic first but it comes at an awkward time for the Western alliance that has supported Kyiv.

The summer is ending after a slower-than-expected Ukrainian military counter-offensive, without the major success that Western leaders had hoped to see before autumn mud clogs the treads of their donated tanks.

“I am sure that Ukraine and the entire free world are capable of winning this confrontation. But our victory depends directly on our cooperation with you,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the ministers, according to his website.