Ukraine-Russian Crisis

Ukraine’s First Lady Makes Emotional Appeal To US Congress For More Arms [VIDEO]

Published

2 years ago

Jul 21, 2022.

Benard Joseph

Ukraine’s First Lady Makes Emotional Appeal To US Congress For More Arms.
Olena Zelenska said Russia’s ‘Hunger Games’ are devastating peaceful families and cities in her country.

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EKO HOT BLOG reports that Ukrainian First Lady, Olena Zelenska makes an emotional appeal to the US Congress and asks for weapons to claim ‘joint great victory’ in the war against Russia.

In a brief but emotional speech, Zelenska spoke about the increasingly dire security, economic and humanitarian conditions in Ukraine.

“I want to address you not as first lady, but as a daughter and as a mother,” Zelenska said in Ukrainian, as a woman interpreted her speech in English, their voices breaking at times. “No matter what positions and titles we reach in our lives, first of all, we always remain part of our family. … This is the great truth of our life. Our family represents the whole world for us, and we’d do everything to preserve it.”

Zelenska did not hold back in displaying images of victims of the war on a screen behind her: There was Lisa, a toddler whom she had met months ago, who was killed July 14 by a Russian missile attack in the city of Vinnytsia, she said.

A picture of Lisa’s toppled stroller flashed on the screen, and Zelenska added that those close to Lisa’s injured mother did not tell her for days that her child had died. Other victims included 5-year-old Eva, whose tiny body was shown curled up amid the rubble of a destroyed building, and a Holocaust survivor killed in Kyiv.

Zelenska noted she was the first wife of a foreign leader to address Congress and that first ladies are usually “exclusively engaged in peaceful affairs.”

“But how can I talk about [peaceful affairs] when an unprovoked invasive terrorist war is being waged against my country? Russia is destroying our people,” she said.

Russia’s “Hunger Games” are devastating peaceful families and cities in Ukraine, she said, referring to the dystopian film series in which a group of children must fight to the death. The devastation in Ukraine would never be broadcast on Russian news, she added.

“That’s why I’m showing you here,” Zelenska said.

She closed her speech with an appeal for more weapons, saying the war in Ukraine is not over and that the answer lies in Washington, where U.S. lawmakers could indulge in the normalcy of planning months ahead.

“I am asking for weapons — weapons that will not be used to wage a war on somebody else’s land but to protect one’s home and the right to make up a life in that home,” Zelenska said. “I am asking for air defense systems in order for rockets not to kill children in their strollers … and kill entire families.”

Zelenska received a standing ovation from members of Congress from both sides of the aisle when she took the stage of the main auditorium at the Capitol Visitor Center shortly after 11:10 a.m., as well as when she concluded her remarks about 10 minutes later.

FURTHER READING:

It was the same location where her husband’s virtual speech was streamed to Congress months ago, near the beginning of the war, when he pleaded with U.S. leaders to help defend not only Ukraine but also the very notion of democracy around the world.

Watch the video here

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