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On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited his fighters in the frontline city of Bakhmut.
Samuel Schumacherforeign journalist
“I don’t need a taxi, I need ammunition,” Volodymyr Zelenskiy (44) said in February, when the United States offered to take him out of Ukraine and into safe America. The fact that the Ukrainian president remained in Ukraine, despite being on Putin’s death list and despite increasingly unpredictable rocket and drone attacks, has gone a long way to boosting his hero status.
But now, less than 24 hours after his perilous visit to the warfront in the eastern Ukrainian Donbass city of Bakhmut, Selensky is on a plane to Washington DC, where he will meet with US President Joe Biden (80) and speak at the American Parliament.
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 includes several “Patriot” anti-aircraft systems. They will allow Ukraine to repel almost any Russian missile and drone attack. This means that Kiev’s wish for a no-fly zone over the country has been fulfilled.
Putin will see the foam of the visit
Zelensky knows that without sustained American support, Ukraine has no chance of surviving this war. And he knows the symbolic power of his journey. Not even the greatest bargain hunters among the Republicans, who have on several occasions hinted that they want to cut aid to Ukraine in favor of funds to support the Americans, will hardly be able to resist the warlike charm of the worthy speaker from Kiev.
But not only Americans will be impressed by the Ukrainian president’s trip abroad. Even Vladimir Putin (70), who is already under pressure in Moscow due to his slow-moving “special military operation,” will seem enchanted in Washington. While the Kremlin ruler has to make do with visits to his braggart dictator friend Alexander Lukashenko (68) in cold, damp Minsk, his Ukrainian counterpart is being wooed by the world’s most powerful country and received with full honors at its most notorious political stage.
Zelensky provides moral ammunition
This will piss off Putin. And she won’t skimp on his vengeful acts. Ukraine must prepare for new deadly salvos from Russian missile cellars. Moscow will see its war lie confirmed and will loudly trumpet: “We told you: the whole world is against us! The Americans are attacking Russia!”
However, Volodymyr Zelenskiy will not be deterred by this and will return to Ukraine with a new military aid package from the United States. The return of the prize to his homeland should cement Zelenski’s heroic status once and for all, even among his few critics in Ukraine.
He, who does not hesitate to go to the front in the midst of war; the one who, though tired and overburdened, still speaks calmly to the people about him every day; the one who, despite the open doors in American exile, endures the harsh everyday life in the Ukraine: in this decisive and approaching winter, he supplies his fighters with what they so urgently need in addition to American air defense systems: sincere moral ammunition .
