“I don’t need a taxi, I need ammunition,” Volodymyr Zelenskiy, 44, said in February when the United States offered to fly him out of Ukraine and take him to the safety of America. The fact that the Ukrainian president has remained in Ukraine despite being on Putin’s hit list and despite increasingly unpredictable missile and drone strikes has contributed much to his hero status.
But now, less than 24 hours after his perilous visit to the war front in the eastern Ukrainian Donbass city of Bakhmut, Selensky is on a plane to Washington DC, where he will meet US President Joe Biden, 80, and the US Parliament address.
At the end of the week, US lawmakers will vote on a new aid package for Ukraine worth nearly $50 billion: a vital grant of historic proportions. According to reports, the package also contains several “Patriot” anti-aircraft systems. They will enable Ukraine to repel almost all Russian missile and drone attacks. This has fulfilled Kiev’s wish for a no-fly zone over the country.
Putin will see the visit foaming
Zelensky knows that without continued American support, Ukraine has no chance of surviving this war. And he knows the symbolic power of his journey. Even the biggest bargain-hunters among Republicans, who have hinted on several occasions that they want to cut aid to Ukraine in favor of bailouts for Americans, are unlikely to be able to resist the warmongering charm of the gifted orator from Kiev.
But not only Americans will be impressed by the Ukrainian president’s trip abroad. Vladimir Putin, 70, already under pressure in Moscow for his slow “special military operation”, will also cast a spell on Washington. While the Kremlin ruler has to settle for visits to his incendiary dictator friend Alexander Lukashenko (68) in cold, wet Minsk, his Ukrainian counterpart is courted by the most powerful country in the world and received with all the honors at the most famous of the country. political scene.
Zelensky provides morale ammunition
That will anger Putin. And he will not skimp on his vengeance. Ukraine must prepare for new deadly salvos from Russian missile cellars. Moscow will see its war lie confirmed and trumpet loudly: “We told you: the whole world is against us! The Americans are attacking Russia!”
However, Volodymyr Zelenskiy is not deterred by this and returns to Ukraine with a new military aid package from the US. The return of the hunted to his homeland should confirm Zelensky’s heroic status once and for all, even among his few critics in Ukraine.
He, who does not shrink from going to the front at the height of the war; he who, though overtired and overburdened, still calmly addresses his people every day; he who, despite open doors in American exile, endures the harsh everyday life of Ukraine: in this all-decisive, approaching winter, he supplies his fighters with what they so desperately need in addition to American air defense systems: sincere moral ammunition.