From Yahoo:
“Russia 'invested crazy money'
in weapons, Zelensky tells NATO in plea for tanks and planes”
(Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky addresses NATO leaders in Brussels on Thursday)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky told President Biden and European leaders who had gathered in Brussels
for a NATO summit that his nation was in a “gray zone,” struggling to hold on
against a Russian occupation as Western allies watched from the sidelines. It
was a grim assessment and a plea for help. “A month of unpunished destruction
of the peaceful state, and with it — the whole architecture of global security.
All this is before the eyes of the whole world,” Zelensky said in Thursday’s
address, which he delivered from a besieged Kyiv. Much as he did in last week’s
speech to Congress, he painted the defense of Ukraine as a fight against
autocracy. “They invested crazy money in death while the world invested in
life,” Zelensky said of Russia, according to an English-language transcript of
his remarks provided by his office. “But Ukraine is holding on bravely! At the
cost of thousands of lives. At the cost of destroyed cities. At the cost of
almost 10 million migrants.”
Ukraine is not a member of NATO,
and Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear that he would see its
membership in the alliance as a direct threat. At the same time, some worry
that he has designs on the three Baltic nations, which were, like Ukraine, once
part of the Soviet Union and eagerly joined NATO when offered the chance to do
so. Like Ukraine, the three countries — Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia — share a
significant land border with Russia and Moscow-aligned Belarus. Were Putin to
attack there, NATO would be required to mount a military defense, thus
potentially triggering a global war.
A former actor who has shown
himself to be a deft politician, Zelensky understands NATO’s desperation to
avoid war with a nuclear power like Russia. He is also aware that global
sentiment is squarely on Ukraine’s side. Since the Russian invasion began last
month, he has used social media to highlight the plight of ordinary Ukrainians
as they endure a relentless Russian aerial assault. So far, however, his most
ambitious request — for the West to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine — has
gone unmet. Zelensky acknowledged frustration with the Western response to that
request. “We did not hear a clear answer,” he said. “Ukraine does not have
powerful anti-missile weapons, and has a much smaller aircraft fleet than
Russia. Therefore, their advantage in the sky is like the use of weapons of
mass destruction.” Poor planning and execution on the Kremlin’s part have
proved something of a reprieve for Zelensky. But with a vastly bigger military,
Russia can afford to turn the conflict into an enervating stalemate. Ukraine
cannot, especially as humanitarian conditions there rapidly deteriorate. “The
Ukrainian army has been resisting for a month in unequal conditions! And I have
been repeating the same thing for a month now. To save people and our cities,
Ukraine needs military assistance — without restrictions,” Zelensky told the
leaders gathered in Brussels. In recent days, he has spoken — and appealed — to
leaders in Japan, Italy, Israel, France and Germany, connecting the specific
history of each country with Ukraine’s own plight.
The United States announced $800
million in new military aid last week, and NATO said on Wednesday that it was
doubling the number of battle groups on its eastern flank. It will also deliver
equipment to Ukraine to help defend against a biological or chemical attack,
which some observers and diplomats fear is imminent.
Zelensky used Thursday’s speech to
ask for heavier military firepower than the shoulder-fired antitank and
antiaircraft weapons the West has been shipping to Ukraine. “You can give us 1%
of all your aircraft. One percent of all your tanks. One percent!" Even as
he did so, the Ukrainian president made clear that NATO was not to blame for
the devastation of the last four weeks. “You are not guilty. It’s not your
missiles, it’s not your bombs that are destroying our cities,” he said from the
unadorned office from which he has been speaking to the world, dressed in a
green pullover and with a beard darkening the outlines of his jaw. Still, he
couldn’t help alluding to the debate over the NATO membership that he and some
of his predecessors have been requesting for years. “After such a war against
Russia ... never, please, never tell us again that our army does not meet NATO
standards,” he said. He ended his address with a plainspoken plea. “Our needs
are on the table,” Zelensky said. “We need peace immediately. The answers are
up to you.”
^ 1 month into this War and NATO
member countries have done a lot behind the scenes to help Ukraine, but need to
do a lot more. Ukraine is doing all the fighting, suffering and dying and so
the least the US, Canada, the UK, the EU, NATO and the UN can do is provide
Ukraine with more weapons, food, money, etc. ^
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