Published
By videoconference, facing the elected Americans, the Ukrainian president asked Joe Biden, the “leader of the world”, to establish a no-fly zone over his country, to “save lives”.
Volodymyr Zelensky received a standing ovation from all elected members of the United States Congress.
AFP
“To be the leader of the world is to be the leader of peace”: speaking in English before the entire American Congress, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky directly challenged his American counterpart on Wednesday, urging Joe Biden to impose urgently a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
“You are the leader of a nation, of your great nation. I want you to be the leader of the world”, he hammered in a serious tone, in a khaki T-shirt, from Ukraine, during a video address broadcast to the American Congress and the chains of country information.
Joe Biden, who refuses to impose such a no-fly zone on the grounds that it would constitute too great an escalation once morest Moscow, must speak later in the followingnoon. Among other things, he must announce additional security aid to Ukraine of 800 million dollars.
Pearl Harbor, 11-Septembre
Volodymyr Zelensky spoke for the first time before the American Congress, following a similar initiative before the British and Canadian Parliaments. In a sometimes impassioned plea, the Ukrainian president implored the United States and its Western allies to do more to save his country from the Russian invasion, reminding them of the darkest hours of their history.
“In your great history, you have pages that allow you to understand Ukrainians,” he told American elected officials. “Remember Pearl Harbor, that terrible morning of December 7, 1941, when your sky was darkened by the planes attacking you”, “remember September 11, that terrible day in 2001”, he said. added. “This terror, Europe has not experienced it for 80 years!”
Referring to the fate of “more than a hundred Ukrainian children” “whose hearts no longer beat” because of the war, the 44-year-old leader assured that he saw “no meaning in life if it cannot stop the death”. Volodymyr Zelensky also took over Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream”, launching: “I have a dream, these words are known to each of you. Today, I can say it, I have a need, the need to protect our sky. I need your decision, your help.”
standing ovation
“Is it asking too much to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine, to save people? Is it asking too much, a humanitarian no-fly zone?” he said, before showing American elected officials a video of his country under the bombs. At the end of the excerpt, this inscription: “Close the sky over Ukraine.”
Volodymyr Zelensky received a standing ovation from all the elected members of the Congress, to whom blue and yellow brooches, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, had been distributed. The Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, seated in the second row and surrounded by senior congressional officials, also received a standing ovation. “Slava Ukraini”, “Glory to Ukraine”, launched the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
(AFP)
