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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy played a video during his address to U.S. Congress on Wednesday contrasting life in the once-peaceful nation to the current destruction, suffering and death impacting children, the elderly and other civilians since Russian President Vladimir Putin greenlit a full-scale invasion last month.
The video began with footage of daily life in Ukraine before Putin launched the invasion on Feb. 24. With instrumental music playing, couples are seen holding hands, children play in parks or feed the birds and people enjoy cups of coffee on city blocks.
The montage then takes a dramatic turn, showing security footage of a Russian missile narrowly missing a man out on a stroll in a city park. More clips show bombing and destruction in the country’s capital of Kyiv, and the images of happy children are contrasted against crying young ones in the war-torn country.
UKRAINE’S ZELENSKYY ADDRESSES CONGRESS, INVOKES 9/11, PEARL HARBOR, MLK AS HE PLEADS FOR PIVOTAL AID
“This is murder,” a message on the screen said, as still photos showed the devastation following the Russian shelling of a maternity hospital in the southern city of Mariupol, a man crying over the body of a loved one covering a blood-soaked sheet, mass graves, soldiers attending to dead bodies strewn across city streets and a man carrying three photos of loved ones killed in the bombings.
Graphic footage showed children being rushed by soldiers and medical staff for emergency care. The pregnant woman – seen in viral photos lying on a watermelon- patterned blanket on a stretcher as she’s carried from the Mariupol hospital – is shown. The AP reported that she and her baby have since died.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT IS SHOWN AFTER THE 11:15 MARK:
The montage grew increasingly more graphic, depicting strollers and baby carriers being loaded onto trains and elderly people with limited mobility badly hurt or being evacuated. A boy wanders while crying and newborn babies are swaddled in blood-stained rags. Children are packed into bomb shelters.
“Close the sky over Ukraine,” the video concluded.
“Today it’s not enough to be the leader of the nation, today takes being the leader of the world. To be the leader of the world takes being the leader of peace,” Zelenskyy said. “Today, the Ukrainian people are fighting not only for Ukraine, we are fighting for the values of Europe and the world.”
“Now I’m almost 45 years old, but today my age stopped,” he said. “When the hearts of more than 100 children stopped beating, I see no sense in life if it cannot stop the deaths.”
Footage of the war in Ukraine is displayed as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to the U.S. Congress by video to plead for support as his country is besieged by Russian forces, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, March 16, 2022.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Pool)
He also directly addressed President Biden.
“You are the leader of your nation – your great nation – I wish you to be the leader of the world,” Zelenskyy said. “Being leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.”
Biden is expected to respond to Zelenskyy’s address and announce an additional $800 million in military funding for Ukraine, on top of the $200 million that was announced Saturday, Fox News has learned. The White House has so far maintained that declaring a no-fly zone over Ukraine would be escalatory.
Several members of U.S. Congress broke down in tears while the video montage played.
“As a new mom, it is heart-wrenching to watch the video that President Zelenskyy just played in terms of bombing of a maternity ward and the war crimes that are being committed today,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., told reporters afterward. “Make no mistake, there will be consequences on the global stage for Vladimir Putin, who is a war criminal and a thug.”
Of Zelenskyy, she said the Ukrainian president is a leader “who has risen to catastrophic challenge and a catastrophic crisis in his country.” He outlined that fact that “this is the most significant national security crisis in Europe since the end of World War II,” Stefanik said. “The stakes could not be higher.”
The Biden administration has “been far too slow not only in their implementation of sanctions but the lack of completeness in sanctions,” Stefanik said. “The Ukrainian people need those MiGs, and they need them now, they need them yesterday. House Republicans have been united in advocating for strong, tough sanctions for months predating the invasion. We stand strongly in support of MiGs and making sure the weapons and ammunition that is needed get to the Ukrainian people as quickly as possible.”
“It was difficult to watch, it was heartbreaking,” Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., said of Zelenskyy’s video.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who recently traveled on a congressional delegation to Poland, said “the video we saw was very reminiscent of Nazi Germany, and it’s happening today in our lifetime.”
“It happened in my father’s lifetime, but I never thought I’d see this,” McCaul, whose father served in World War II, said. “And history will judge us, ‘What did you do? What did you do when the bombing started? When the maternity hospitals were bombed and the pregnant women were taken out?'”
Though he supports sending weapons rather than intervening directly in Ukraine, McCaul said it’s time for the U.S. to begin looking at “red lines” to set certain circumstances that would warrant the U.S. declaring a no-fly zone over Ukraine, such as if the Russians used chemical weapons, like they did in Syria.
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Asked about the video, Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., said he saw firsthand during their trip to Poland the streams of refugees coming across the border, as women and children carried just a bag with them.
“Hungry. Many of them had walked in the cold for days. Many of us couldn’t stop but crying,” he said. “Many of them were trying to get in touch with their husbands, because if you were 18 to 60 you couldn’t come across. They did not know if they would see their husbands of fathers again. They did not know what life was going to be. Everything in a matter of hours had changed for them.”
“That video echoed that,” he said.
