America will back Ukraine with military and financial aid until Russia‘s invasion ends in failure, President Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during their historic appearance together at the White House on Wednesday, with the leaders projecting unity and seeking to hold together an international coalition — and a fraying U.S. Congress — as the war nears the 10-month mark.
The White House meeting, which marked Mr. Zelenskyy‘s first trip outside of Ukraine since the war began on Feb. 24, offered the two men the chance for a rare face-to-face conversation. Mr. Biden said he looked deep into the Ukrainian president’s “soul” and saw that Mr. Zelenskyy “is who he says he is.”
“It’s clear who he is. He‘s willing to give his life for his country,” Mr. Biden said of Mr. Zelenskyy during their joint press conference, which followed a roughly two-hour conversation in the Oval Office.
The appearance alongside Mr. Biden gave Mr. Zelenskyy, a onetime comedian who shot to global fame this year as the face of his country’s determined resistance to the Kremlin, perhaps his largest-ever platform to project his trademark confidence and defiance toward Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, in particular. Dressed in his now-trademark army olive green shirt and combat boots, Mr. Zelenskyy expressed deep gratitude for U.S. military and financial aid, including a fresh package announced Wednesday that includes the long-awaited delivery of an American Patriot missile defense system.
While confident his nation will ultimately succeed, Mr. Zelenskyy also took a somber tone when asked what a “just peace” with Moscow might look like. Because indiscriminate Russian shelling has killed thousands of Ukrainians and leveled cities, Mr. Zelenskyy said such a concept no longer applies to many Ukrainians.
Russia, which illegally annexed Crimea from Kyiv in 2014, still controls along with its Ukrainian separatist allies a significant swath of Ukraine‘s eastern and southern regions.
“For me as president, a ‘just peace’ is no compromises as to the sovereignty, freedom, and territorial integrity of my country, the payback for all the damages inflicted by Russian aggression,” Mr. Zelenskyy said. “As a father, I would like to emphasize, you know, many parents lost their sons and daughters on the front lines. What is just peace for them? Money is nothing.”
“The longer the war lasts, the longer this aggression lasts, there will be more parents who live for the sake of vengeance, revenge,” he said. “I know a lot of people like that. There can’t be any just peace in the war that was imposed on us” by Russia.
Mr. Biden expressed sympathy for the horrors that the Ukrainian people have suffered. He said the U.S. and the West more broadly won’t abandon the Ukrainians during their hour of need.
via joemiller
