(Washington) Many thanks, but also a plea for the massive American aid to continue: Volodymyr Zelensky came to defend his cause on Thursday in Washington, facing a Joe Biden who is already convinced, and elected officials who are not. everyone, far from it.
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 of $325 million, but without the long-range tactical missiles that Kyiv insists on.
Joe Biden, however, assured that another emblematic American weapon, the Abrams tanks, would arrive in Ukraine “next week”.
“Thank you”
Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, multiplied the “thank you”, in particular for the “very powerful” assistance announced Thursday, which notably includes anti-aircraft defense equipment.
PHOTO EVAN VUCCI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Volodymyr Zelensky and Joe Biden, in the Oval Office of the White House
“I assured President Biden that Ukraine would not give up and he assured me that America would stand with us for as long as it took,” he said in a speech Thursday evening .
Throughout the day, the Ukrainian president also wanted to express his gratitude to the American Congress, which is currently debating the vote on a new aid package for Ukraine, which some Trumpist elected officials do not want to hear about. .
Joe Biden told him that there was “no other way” and said that he was counting on the “discernment” of elected officials.
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”
At the Capitol, the head of state turned warlord arrived on another kind of battlefield, political and financial.
PHOTO ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Volodymyr Zelensky alongside Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Minority Leader in the United States House of Representatives
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 while threatening, from the 1er October, a budgetary paralysis if all these beautiful 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 notice 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 the leader of the Republicans in the Senate did, however. , 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
ARCHIVE PHOTO PROVIDED BY US MILITARY BY REUTERS
An ATACMS is launched during a joint exercise with the South Korean army in South Korea.
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 [missiles] ATACMS,” US Executive National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said at 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 nighttime 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.