Ukraine’s first girl addressed Congress on Wednesday, asking for extra weapons to defend in opposition to what she known as “Russian starvation video games” killing youngsters and ripping aside households.
“I wish to tackle you not as a primary girl however as a daughter and a mom,” Olena Zelenska instructed the gathered lawmakers. “An unprovoked invasive terrorist struggle is being waged in opposition to my nation.”
“Russia is destroying our individuals,” she added.
The tackle got here sooner or later after Ms. Zelenska met with Jill Biden on the White Home as their husbands search to maintain the world’s consideration on the struggle ravaging Ukraine and the bigger menace posed by Russian aggression.
The Home speaker, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, mentioned in a letter to Home colleagues earlier than the speech that “the brutality of Russian aggression and the remedy of ladies and kids have horrified the American individuals, and these crimes have been of explicit concern to the ladies members of Congress.”
The talks between Ms. Zelenska and Dr. Biden on Tuesday got here simply over two months after the 2 first met throughout Dr. Biden’s unannounced go to in western Ukraine. The conferences underscored how the struggle has dramatically reshaped their roles in current months.
Ms. Zelenska, 44, who as soon as centered on problems with feminine empowerment, literacy and tradition in Ukraine, has been utilizing her profile to boost consciousness about Russian crimes in opposition to youngsters and older residents.
She met her future husband, Volodymyr Zelensky, after they have been nonetheless college students at completely different universities of their hometown, the commercial metropolis of Kryvyi Rih. She later grew to become a script author at Kvartal 95, the manufacturing firm that Mr. Zelensky based earlier than he traded comedian performing for the presidency — after which grew to become a wartime president.
In a put up on Telegram, Ms. Zelenska mentioned she was in search of assist from the American authorities and enterprise group for a program to supply prosthetic limbs to Ukrainian youngsters who stepped on land mines or have been maimed in bombardments.
