Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has told Americans that US military aid to Ukraine was not charity, but an investment in security for the future.
In what the BBC describes as a ‘defiant address’, the Ukrainian leader told US lawmakers on his first foreign trip since Russia’s invasion that his country was ‘alive and kicking’ and would never surrender.
Zelensky – wearing his trademark combat-green sweatshirt and boots – expressed the hope that Congress would pass an extra $45bn in aid to Ukraine (currently before the US Senate) to ‘help us to defend our values and independence’.
According to the BBC, his appeal comes amid signs that US support is likely to face greater scrutiny by Republican lawmakers in Congress.
President Joe Biden has vowed to stick by Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’.
However, Republican support for continued assistance has been eroding – in a November survey, just over half of Republican voters supported aid to Ukraine, down from 80% in March.
But Zelensky, who travelled on a US Air Force jet from the Polish city of Rzeszow, said that ‘regardless of changes in the Congress’, he believed there would be bipartisan support for his country.
He made his plea in emotive terms before a joint session of Congress in a speech that was interrupted 18 times with standing ovations by nearly all members of Congress, with the exception of some Republican lawmakers who did not clap.
Speaking in English, he told them his country was still standing ‘against all odds’ and predicted ‘a turning point’ in the conflict next year.