Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will address the US Congress as a wartime leader appealing for American support, as British premier Winston Churchill did more than 80 years before.
Zelensky’s visit to Washington — much like Churchill’s in December 1941 — comes with his country under relentless attack and international aid essential to its ability to fight on.
“Where Winston Churchill stood generations ago, so too will President Zelensky stand here today, not just as a president, but also as an ambassador of freedom itself,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said ahead of the Ukrainian leader’s address on Wednesday evening.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recalled that her father was a lawmaker when the British leader made his famous address to Congress.
“This is a moment fraught with meaning for me. My father, congressman Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., was a member of the House in 1941 when Winston Churchill came to the Congress on the day after Christmas to enlist our nation’s support in the fight against tyranny in Europe,” Pelosi said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is scheduled to address a joint meeting of Congress on December 21, 2022. — © AFP
Zelensky has already channeled Churchill in a remote address to Britain’s House of Commons earlier this year, pledging to “fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.”
– Limits of US support –
The comparison between Churchill’s and Zelensky’s trips to the United States has its limits, however, including in the length of the Ukrainian leader’s stay.
Churchill spent three weeks in Washington at the invitation of president Franklin Roosevelt — a lengthy visit that historians say wore on the nerves of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who did not enjoy the two men’s late night cigar and brandy-fueled conversations.
Zelensky’s trip will only last a few hours, and will include a meeting in the Oval Office, a joint press conference with US President Joe Biden, and a speech to Congress.
Churchill ventured across the Atlantic despite the threat of submarines, while Zelensky made the journey via aircraft.
When Churchill arrived in the United States, he found a country shaken by the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor and drawn into an international conflict it had sought to avoid.
While Biden is willing to be compared to Roosevelt for his ambitious economic reforms, he does not want to be drawn into a third world war, making clear that he will not send troops to Ukraine, nor even certain types of weapons, in a bid to avoid escalation.
