2023-09-21 21:00:00
Many thanks, but also a plea for massive American aid to continue: Volodymyr Zelensky came to defend his cause on Thursday in Washington, facing an already convinced Joe Biden, and parliamentarians who are not all convinced, far from of the.
The Ukrainian president, in his usual khaki outfit, began his day at Congress, and continued at the White House, where he was received by the American president with many gestures of affection and assurances of support.
“We are with you, we remain with you,” the 80-year-old democrat told him, detailing new military aid, but without the long-range tactical missiles that Kiev insists on.
Joe Biden, however, guaranteed that another emblematic American weapon, the Abrams tanks, would arrive in Ukraine “next week”.
“Thank you”
Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, multiplied the “thanks you”, in particular for the “very powerful” assistance announced Thursday, which notably includes anti-aircraft defense equipment.
The Ukrainian president has repeatedly expressed his gratitude for the American Congress, which is currently debating the vote on a new aid package for Ukraine, which certain Trumpist elected officials do not want to hear about.
Joe Biden told him that there was “no alternative” and said that he was counting on the “discernment” of parliamentarians.
Aware of the risk of weariness on the part of the great American ally, the Ukrainian president had in the morning warned Republican elected officials that his country risked losing the war if the flow of aid stopped abruptly.
“The Free World”
“I stressed that a victory for Ukraine would ensure that neither Russia nor any other dictatorship destabilizes the free world again,” he said on X (formerly Twitter).
“To win, we must stay united,” he insisted.
At the Capitol, the head of state turned warlord arrived on another kind of battlefield, political and financial.
On one side there is the Senate, with a Democratic majority of course, but where the Republican opposition is rather in favor of aid to Ukraine.
On the other hand, there is the House of Representatives, dominated by conservatives since January and where a handful of right-wing elected officials are calling for an immediate end to aid to kyiv.
All this while there is a threat, from October 1, of a budgetary paralysis if all these people cannot agree on at least a provisional finance law.
“Accountable”
Suffice it to say that the atmosphere has changed a lot in the American capital since Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit on December 21, 2022, and his speech, to acclamations, before the then Congress.
It escaped no one’s attention that the Republican boss of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, did not escort the Ukrainian leader when he arrived at the Capitol on Thursday – which, however, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate did , Mitch McConnell.
Kevin McCarthy, put under pressure by the right wing of his party, said on Tuesday that he would ask his visitor to be “accountable for the money we have already spent”.
Republican Michael McCaul, head of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, however, was optimistic about the approval of new aid of $24 billion.
“They need it and they will get it,” assured the elected official from Texas.
No ATACMS missiles
The White House, despite all assurances of support, however, did not grant a repeated request from the Ukrainians.
President Biden has “decided that he will not provide ATACMS (missiles), declared the national security adviser of the American executive, Jake Sullivan, during a press conference. “He did not rule out this possibility in the future,” he said.
Joe Biden is also aware of the risk of running out of steam as the conflict continues and winter approaches.
During the night, a “massive” Russian night attack targeted several towns in Ukraine, leaving three dead in Kherson, in the south, and seven injured in kyiv, the capital.
“Russia believes that the world will tire and let it brutalize Ukraine without consequences,” warned the American president, who must run for a second term next year, at the United Nations on Tuesday.
22/09/2023 00:19:46 –
Washington (AFP) –
© 2023 AFP
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