WASHINGTON,
DC —
Ukraine’s president will deliver a virtual address to Congress on Wednesday as
lawmakers bid to ratchet up pressure on the White House to take a tougher line
over Russia’s invasion.
اضافة اعلان
The appeal comes with both sides launching a
fresh round of talks amid deadly air strikes in the capital Kyiv, nearly three
weeks after Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin ordered the attack.
“We look forward to the privilege of
welcoming President (Volodymyr) Zelensky’s address to the House and Senate and
to convey our support to the people of Ukraine as they bravely defend
democracy,” House leader Nancy Pelosi and her Senate counterpart Chuck Schumer
said in a joint letter to lawmakers.
Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the
Canadian House of Commons, said Zelensky would also address lawmakers in Ottawa, on
Tuesday.
Zelensky’s pleas for help to defend his
country from Russia’s deadly assault have grown increasingly desperate, and he
has repeatedly urged Washington, the European Union and
NATO for military
hardware.
Dressed in a military-green T-shirt and
seated beside a Ukrainian flag, Zelensky spoke to lawmakers from the US
Republican and Democratic parties in a March 5 video call to plead for
Russian-made planes.
Poland has offered to send Soviet-style
MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine via a US air base in Germany.
The
White House — fearing the move could
escalate tensions with Russia — has rejected the proposal, saying it raised
“serious concerns” for the entire NATO alliance.
And Moscow confirmed at the weekend that its
troops could target supplies of Western weapons in Ukraine and that the pouring
in of arms would turn convoys “into legitimate targets.”
There is a growing clamor on both sides of
Congress, however, for a more assertive US posture.
‘Fighting
chance’
“What
we’ve heard directly from the Ukrainians is they want them badly,” Republican
Senator
Rob Portman said of the planes in an interview with CNN Sunday during a
trip to the Ukraine-Poland border.
“They want the ability to have better control
over the skies in order to give them a fighting chance. I don’t understand why
we’re not doing it.”
Democratic Senator
Amy Klobuchar, who was also
on the visit, told the network she had spoken to Biden “about 10 days ago”
about the fighters, adding: “I’d like to see the planes over there.”
Republicans initially led calls for the
transfer last week, although military veterans among the Democrats and the
58-member bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus have also backed the move.
“With Russia’s alarming disregard for
Ukrainian civilian casualties, the US must ... help supply more comprehensive
air defense systems to defend Ukraine and its people,” they said in a letter of
support.
Congress usually defers to the White House on
foreign policy but has increasingly been pressuring the
Biden administration
for a more punitive response to Russia’s aggression, with notable success.
Members of both parties called for tougher
sanctions against Russia and authorized more than double the military and
humanitarian aid the administration had requested for Ukraine.
Congress was also seen as having nudged Biden
to announce a US ban on Russian oil, seen as politically risky amid spiraling
gas prices, and led the pressure for Washington to end permanent normal trade
relations with Russia.
Biden authorized $200 million in additional
military equipment for Ukraine Saturday, on top of $350 million green-lit on
February 26.
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