Zelenskiy Archives - Read Selective

On invasion milestone, Ukraine urges solidarity as Western leaders gather

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses French lawmakers via video lin, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine March 23, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS

Ukraine’s leader called for solidarity on Thursday, a month since Russia’s invasion began, warning he would see who sells out at summits in Europe where bolstering sanctions and NATO is planned but restrictions on energy could prove divisive.

U.S. President Joe Biden has arrived in Brussels for meetings of the alliance, G7 and European Union over a conflict that began on Feb. 24 and has caused more than 3.6 million refugees to flee the country.

Biden’s visit could also shine light on a dispute with European allies, some of whom are heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas, over whether to impose further energy sanctions.

The issue has been a “substantial” topic and the subject of “intense back and forth” in recent days, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters. The United States has already banned imports of Russian oil.

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said Moscow planned to switch gas sales made to “unfriendly” countries to roubles, causing European gas prices to soar on concerns the move would exacerbate the region’s energy crunch.

As the humanitarian toll from the conflict continues to rise, driving a quarter of Ukraine’s population of 44 million from their homes, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on people around the world to take to the streets and demand the war end.

“Come from your offices, your homes, your schools and universities, come in the name of peace, come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life,” he said in a video address.

The United States planned to announce more sanctions on Russian political figures and oligarchs on Thursday, and officials would have more to say on Friday about European energy issues, Sullivan said.

Ahead of his meeting with Biden, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would boost its forces in Eastern Europe by deploying four new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia.

Zelenskiy said on Thursday he expected “serious steps” from Western allies.

He repeated his call for a no-fly zone and complained that the West had not provided Ukraine with planes, modern anti-missile systems, tanks or anti-ship weapons.

“At these three summits we will see who is our friend, who is our partner and who sold us out and betrayed us,” he said in a video address released early on Thursday.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/invasion-milestone-ukraine-urges-solidarity-western-leaders-gather-2022-03-24/

Biden calls Putin a war criminal after Zelenskiy speaks to Congress

Ukrainian president receives standing ovation as he urges US to send more military aid and impose further sanctions

Joe Biden has denounced Vladimir Putin as a war criminal, delivering his sharpest rebuke yet of the Russian leader just hours after the Ukrainian president pleaded with Congress to provide more aid to his country.

“I think he is a war criminal,” Biden said of Putin on Wednesday.

Members of Congress in the auditorium in Washington. Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/UPI/Rex/Shutterstock

The president’s comment marked a distinct rhetorical shift for the White House, which had deflected previous questions about whether Putin should be considered a war criminal for the Russian military’s attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

“There is a process, and we have stood up a process internally – an internal team – to assess and look at and evaluate evidence of what we’re seeing happen on the ground,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said earlier this month.

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Biden’s comments were “unacceptable and unforgivable rhetoric”, according to Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency.

Biden’s comments came hours after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, delivered an impassioned virtual address to the US Congress. From the besieged capital of Ukraine, Zelenskiy pleaded with lawmakers to do more to protect his nation against the brutal Russian invasion, in an emotional appeal that invoked the painful memories of Pearl Harbor and the September 11 terrorists attacks and echoed Martin Luther King’s call for a more peaceful future.

The remarks to members of both chambers of Congress came on day 21 of the battle for Ukraine’s survival that Zelenskiy cast as the frontline of a global fight to protect democratic values.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/16/zelenskiy-address-us-congress-ukraine-russia

Ukraine’s Zelenskiy asks U.S. Congress to ‘protect our sky’ against Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged American lawmakers to do more to protect his country from Russia’s invasion in an address to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday and pleaded with President Joe Biden to be the world’s “leader of peace.”

“Russia has turned the Ukrainian sky into a source of death for thousands of people,” Zelenskiy said in a virtual address before showing graphic video of death and destruction in his country that ended with an appeal to “close the sky over Ukraine.”

The words “close the sky over Ukraine” are displayed on the screen as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks to senators and members of the House of Representatives gathered in the Capitol Visitor Center Congressional Auditorium, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., March 16, 2022. J. Scott Applewhite/Pool via REUTERS

Ukraine is facing terror that Europe had not experienced since World War Two and the nation’s destiny is being decided, Zelenskiy said through an interpreter.

“Is this a lot to ask for – to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine to save people? Is this too much?” Zelenskiy asked in remarks from Kyiv, a capital city attacked every day that he said “doesn’t give up.”

Zelenskiy closed with a direct plea in English to Biden: “I wish you to be the leader of the world. Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.”

He received standing ovations before and after his remarks.

Zelenskiy invoked American history, asking the lawmakers to remember the 1941 Japanese bombing of Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor, the 2001 al Qaeda attacks on the United States and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech in Washington.

“I have a dream. These words are known to each of you today. I can say: I have a need. I need to protect our sky,” Zelenskiy said.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers said after the speech that they were ready to do more for Ukraine quickly by clamping down on Russia, providing more military aid including aircraft and tightening global human rights law. But they again rejected a no-fly zone, saying there was too great a risk of wider war with nuclear-armed Russia.

Biden and NATO also have opposed establishing a no-fly zone. The White House has not supported a proposal to help transfer Russian-made MiG warplanes into Ukraine, although that idea has some support in Congress – especially among opposition Republicans.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine is grateful to the United States for its overwhelming support and to Biden “for his personal involvement, for his sincere commitment to the defense of Ukraine and democracy all over the world.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraine-president-zelenskiy-seek-more-help-speech-us-congress-2022-03-16/