$800M, BUT JETS WON’T FLY: JOE
Zelensky is what real leadership looks like
PRESIDENT Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called on Joe Biden to be “the leader of the world” when he spoke before Congress Wednesday, but it’s clear for the moment that Zelensky is the leader of the world — at least when it comes to providing a sterling example of what leadership can and should be.
Stalwart. Responsive to emotion but not driven by it. And with a determined sense of what is right and what is wrong, and what is necessary and unnecessary.
“Strong doesn’t mean brave or big,” Zelensky said, in a sentence worth studying. He wants it to be understood that Ukraine should be supported not because it’s bravely taking a stand against a superior power it is not likely to prevail against.
No, Zelensky was saying, support for Ukraine is not a sentimental or foolhardy gesture, because Ukraine is “strong.” It can win this. It can do so if we give Ukraine the tools that will help it “close the sky,” we won’t just be doing our humanitarian duty in preventing the kinds of horrors he showed us during a heartbreaking film clip showing the cost of Russia’s depredations.
His relatively brief, substantively fascinating and ultimately overwhelming speech will not only strengthen the determination of the American people and the West to support Ukraine, but will deepen that support. For example, he moved beyond the plea for a “no-fly zone” that Biden thinks is too provocative. “Is this too much to ask?” Zelensky said, then answered: “If this is too much to ask, we offer an alternative.”
The alternative was, specifically, a Soviet Russian air-defense system called the S-300, which would have to be transferred to Ukraine by a NATO country formerly in the Soviet bloc where it had once been deployed. Our role would then be to replace that system in Poland (or wherever else) with a newer American system.
Cannily, he did not push on a closed and possibly locked door, but rather opened a side door to a new kind of resistance capacity against the Russian onslaught. That shows Zelensky’s capacity to improvise and think creatively about how to continue the fight he and a growing number of Western war experts think might actually be winnable.
A powerful push
The speech (and his film) will also put salutary pressure on America’s elites — not just in the Biden administration but in Congress and the chattering classes — not to start “going wobbly.”
That‘s what Margaret Thatcher told former President George H.W. Bush to buck him up the last time the nations of the West gathered to oppose and seek to reverse one country’s gobbling up another — back in 1990, when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq took over Kuwait.
Right now, the emotional direction of the country is all toward Ukraine, but despite the general idea that the US public is fickle and will lose interest or focus, the graver threat to Ukraine comes from the elites and their collective lack of a policy spine. That temptation — to think that there might be a way to squirm out of taking a stand — is what Thatcher was warning the elder Bush against 32 years ago.
And it’s a good reminder now that if the Ukrainian people are willing to suffer these awful consequences to remain free of the Russian yoke, we can at least stand shoulder to shoulder with them and give them the support we can.
Zelensky, a comic actor by trade who seems to have answered history’s unexpected call in the most extraordinary fashion, is the face of Ukraine, and the representative of its heart and spirit.
He is the bracing antidote to the terrified defeatism and existential fear that seem to have overcome this country in the pandemic years.
President Biden said Wednesday that the US would give Ukraine $800 million in additional military aid — including drones — but refused to say whether he would change his mind and allow the proposed transfer of 28 MiG-29 fighter jets from Poland to the besieged country to move forward.
Hours after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky brought members of Congress to their feet twice with an emotional request for help fending off Russia’s invasion, Biden arrived at his own announcement late and spoke for less than 10 minutes — warning at one point that Ukraine faced a “long and difficult battle” for freedom.
Biden made no mention of Zelensky’s appeal for a no-fly zone over Ukraine and blew off a reporter who asked: “Mr. President, what will it take for you to send the Polish MiGs that President Zelensky is asking for?”
“I’m not going to comment on that right now,” the president answered. “I’m not going to comment on anything other than what I told you today.”
Included in the package announced by Biden are 100 drones, which multiple outlets reported were single-use Switchblades — nicknamed “kamikaze drones” — that can fly 50 miles before exploding when they reach their target. The new drones are relatively inexpensive, at around $6,000 per device, and have not been used widely in prior wars.
Also included are 9,000 anti-tank missiles — including 6,000 AT-4s and 2,000 Javelins, which have become one of the symbols of Ukraine’s resistance. Ukraine will also be getting 800 Stinger antiaircraft systems, nearly 7,000 small arms and more than 20 million rounds of ammunition, plus mortarand grenade-launcher rounds.
Rounding out the inventory list put out by the White House were 25,000 sets of body armor and 25,000 helmets.
Putin vs. ‘humankind’
“Together with our allies and partners, we’re going to stay the
course and we’ll do everything we can to push for an end to this tragic and unnecessary war,” said Biden. “This is a struggle that pits the appetites of an autocrat against humankind’s desire to be free.”
The president later went a step further, referring to Putin as a “war criminal” as he left a White House event — the first time anyone in the administration has made that charge about the Russian leader since the invasion began.
It was left to White House press secretary Jen Psaki to explain Biden’s willingness to dispatch some lethal weapons to Ukraine after axing Poland’s plan to shift the Soviet-designed jets last week.
“I would note that the equipment that we’ve provided is defensive, as you know, not offensive, and we see that as being a difference,” the press secretary said in her afternoon briefing.
Zelensky himself had asked for the planes earlier Wednesday in his address to Congress.
A senior US defense official said last week that Ukraine is believed to still have 56 fighter jets that are able to fly about five to 10 missions a day within the country.