Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska appealed to U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday (July 20) to provide more help to her country as it struggles against a five-month-long Russian invasion, saying weapons could help assure victory.
“The war is not over. The terror continues,”she said through a translator, in an emotional 15-minute speech to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
Zelenska, the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, showed videos of children she said had been wounded or killed, including a three-year-old boy now in Germany learning how to use prosthetic limbs.
“How many children like him are there in Ukraine? How many families like this may still be destroyed by war? These are Russia’s ‘Hunger Games,'” she said in reference to a series of novels and movies in which people hunt one another.
“I am asking for weapons, weapons that would not be used to wage a war on somebody else’s land, but to protect one’s home and the right to wake up alive in that home,” Zelenska said.
The United States has provided $8 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the war began, including $2.2 billion in the last month, the Biden administration says. Members of Congress responded warmly and said they were ready to authorize more.
(Reuters)
