Biden sending more anti-aircraft systems, drones
WASHINGTON » President Joe Biden said Wednesday the U.S. is sending more anti-aircraft, anti-armor weapons and drones to Ukraine to assist in its defense against Russia, announcing the help after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the U.S. and other Western nations to do more in an emotional speech to Congress.
The president’s comments came as he formally announced his administration was sending an additional $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine, making a total of $2 billion in such aid sent to Kyiv since Biden took office more than a year ago. About $1 billion in aid has been sent in the last week.
Biden said the new assistance includes 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 100 grenade launchers, 20 million rounds of small-arms ammunition and grenade launchers and mortar rounds, and an unspecified number of drones.
“We’re going to give Ukraine the arms to fight and defend themselves through all the difficult days ahead,” Biden said.
Biden spoke hours after Zelenskyy delivered a video address to members of U.S. Congress in which he made an impassioned plea for the U.S. and West to provide more help to save his young democracy than world leaders
have pledged to provide.
Invoking past
Zelenskyy summoned the memory of Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in appealing Wednesday to the U.S. Congress to do more to help Ukraine’s fight against Russia, but he acknowledged the no-fly zone he has sought to “close the sky” to airstrikes on his country may not happen.
Livestreamed into the Capitol complex, Zelenskyy said the U.S. must sanction Russian lawmakers and block imports. But rather than an enforced no-fly zone that the White House has resisted, he instead sought other military aid to stop the Russian assault.
For the first time in a public address to world leaders, he showed a packed auditorium of lawmakers a graphic video of the destruction and devastation his country has suffered in the war, along with heartbreaking scenes of civilian casualties.
“We need you right now,” Zelenskyy said. “I call on you to do more.”
Lawmakers gave him a standing ovation, before and after his short remarks, which Zelenskyy began in Ukrainian through an interpreter but then switched to English in a heartfelt appeal to help end the bloodshed.
“I see no sense in life if it cannot stop the deaths,” he said.
Nearing the three-week mark in an escalating war, Zelenskyy has used the global stage to implore allied leaders to help stop the Russian invasion of his country. The young actor-turned-president often draws from history, giving weight to what have become powerful appearances.
Biden has stopped short of providing a no-fly zone or the transfer of military jets from neighboring Poland as the U.S. seeks to avoid a direct confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
The White House has been weighing giving Ukraine access to U.S.made Switchblade drones that can fly and strike Russian targets, according to a separate person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly. It was not immediately clear if the new drones that Biden said would be delivered to Ukraine include the Switchblades.
Zelenskyy has emerged as a heroic figure at the center of what many view as the biggest security threat to Europe since World War II. Almost 3 million refugees have fled Ukraine, the fastest exodus in modern times.
Wearing his now-trademark army green T-shirt, Zelinskyy began the remarks to his “American friends” by invoking the destruction the U.S. suffered in 1941 when Japan bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by militants who commandeered passenger airplanes to crash into the symbols of Western democracy and economy.
“Remember Pearl Harbor? ... Remember September 11?” Zelenzkyy asked. “Our countries experience the same every day right now.”
‘Courage and strength’
Biden said he listened to Zelenskyy’s “significant” speech but did not directly address the Ukrainian’s critique that the U.S. and West could be doing more. The U.S. president said Zelenskyy’s speech reflected Ukrainians “courage and strength” shown throughout the crisis.
“We are united in our abhorrence of Putin’s depraved onslaught and we’re going to continue to have their backs as they fight for their freedom, their democracy, their very survival,” Biden said.
Sen. Angus King, the Maine independent, said there was a “collective holding of the breath” in the room during Zelenskyy’s address.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said, “If you did not look at that video and feel there is an obligation for not only the United States but the free countries of the world to come together in support of Ukraine, you had your eyes closed.”