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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants MiG-29s. He wants shoulder-mounted, surface-to-air missiles. He wants NATO to impose a no-fly zone. But Zelenskyy already has another weapon.
And he’s using it.
“He has understood the power of communications,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J. “It is an additional tool in his arsenal as he tries to fight off Russia.”
Political commentators dubbed President Reagan “the Great Communicator.” Like Reagan, Zelenskyy has a background in the performing arts. He was a standup comedian before running for president. But Reagan never had to get out a message while a warmonger pummeled his country.
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Advantage, Zelenskyy.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
(Getty Images/AP)
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Zelenskyy has a knack for stagecraft. He knows his audience. Zelenskyy speaks to the crowd in the most personal of terms.
Zelenskyy began his remote address to the Canadian Parliament by referring on multiple occasions to his friend “Justin” – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Zelenskyy spoke specifically about what would happen if there were an attack in Vancouver or if bombs destroyed the CN Tower in Toronto.
In wartime, this is “stratcom.” Winning the messaging war. And while the Ukrainian military is supposedly no match for Russia, Zelenskyy is at least prevailing on the information front.
Zelenskyy continued his campaign on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian leader delivered one of the most impassioned speeches presented to Congress in decades. A dire plea to lawmakers, jacked into the Congressional Auditorium by video link on a massive, 40-foot screen, buttressed by four American flags.
Zelenskyy’s message was as simple as the olive green T-shirt he wore.
Zelenskyy’s getup only enhanced his image as the leader of a nation under siege who may have to dash out the door any minute to fire off a few mortar rounds.
Attire doesn’t matter in war. But words do.
“In the darkest time for our country, for the whole [of] Europe, I call on you to do more,” implored Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy painted a picture in language, steeping his address in American icons like Mount Rushmore and invoking Martin Luther King.
“I need your help,” beseeched Zelenskyy, “Which means exactly the same [way] you feel when you hear the words, ‘I have a dream.'”
Zelenskyy may have painted his canvass with verbiage. But he also leaned on a short, disturbing video which showed the horrors of war. Zelenskyy showed this striking video in the middle of his speech. A “play within a play.” It would punctuate Zelenskyy’s message and underscore the carnage. Maimed bodies. Doctors frantically pumping chest compressions on a wounded body. Droplets of blood splattered across a hospital floor. Dead children lying on concrete, covered with coats they would wear to recess. Workers slinging a corpse into a burial ditch as casually as they’d toss out a bag of trash.
“I see no sense in life if it cannot stop deaths,” said Zelenskyy.
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.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Pool)
Zelenskyy’s presentation may have been the most significant speech delivered to Congress by a wartime, foreign leader since British Prime Minister Winston Churchill spoke to Congress, just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The United Kingdom declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939. So the U.K. had been at war for more than two years prior to the United States entering the fray in December 1941 after the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor.
House and Senate members convene most Joint Meetings of Congress in the House chamber. But Congress elected to welcome Churchill in the smaller Senate chamber. Churchill would deliver his oratory on the day after Christmas. It was thought that some lawmakers would have already abandoned Washington for the holidays. There is nothing worse for a Joint Meeting of Congress featuring a foreign dignitary than empty seats. But the Senate chamber swelled with attendees. Lawmakers occupied all 96 Senate desks (there were only 48 states then). Cabinet secretaries and Supreme Court justices crowded into the room.
The Senate added klieg lights so officials could film the address. Two microphones apiece from NBC, CBS and MBS (the Mutual Broadcasting System) sprang out of the Senate floor like sunflowers in front of the dais.
Like Zelenskyy, Churchill had a task at hand. He needed to explain to the United States what they were in for now that it joined the World War II fray. Pearl Harbor pushed the U.S. into the conflict. But Churchill knew that the United Kingdom and democracy could only survive if the U.S. was fully committed to the cause.
The speech was classic Churchill. Stark. Spare. And, most importantly, inspirational.
“The forces arranged against us are enormous. They are bitter. They are ruthless,” observed Churchill.
Churchill warned that U.S. would need a year-and-a-half before they could begin to see progress. Churchill was also cautious. He warned those in attendance that “many disappointments and unpleasant surprises await us.”
But Churchill also admonished those who would challenge the United Kingdom and United States.
“What kind of a people do they think we are? Is it possible that they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?,” asked Churchill.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stands alongside other government officials in a video posted to social media Friday vowing to defend the country from a Russian invasion.
(Armed Forces of Ukraine)
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He questioned if “wicked men” didn’t know “they will be called to terrible account if they cannot beat down by force of arms the people they have assailed.”
Churchill returned for another speech to a Joint Meeting of Congress in 1943.
The parallels between Zelenskyy’s remarks and what unfolded on Capitol Hill eight decades ago wasn’t lost on Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
McCaul characterized Zelenskyy as “the Churchill of our times” during an appearance on Fox News.
And then McCaul practically echoed Churchill.
“History will judge this moment and will ask the question, ‘What did you do to stop this?'”
That question now faces Congress. And, the answer Zelenskyy hopes to find lies within the walls of the House and Senate.
After considering Churchill’s 1941 speech, there’s a reason why Zelenskyy invoked America’s entry into World War II and other cataclysmic events.
“Remember Pearl Harbor. The terrible morning of September 11th,” said Zelenskyy, shifting the attention of lawmakers to the most brazen attacks on American soil.
Zelenskyy then asked the U.S. and NATO to impose a no-fly zone.
“We are asking for a reply to this terror from the whole world. Is this a lot to ask for?” queried Zelenskyy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a joint press conference with his counterparts from Lithuania and Poland following their talks in Kyiv on Feb. 23, 2022.
(SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
But Congress isn’t ready for that.
“President Zelenskyy appeared to have presented an either-or scenario. He indicated in his remarks that he supports the establishment of a no-fly zone. But didn’t indicate any alternative,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
“Europe has to lead on the no-fly zone,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan. “We do not want to make this a mano a mano, Russia versus U.S. thing. I think there’s a lot more that we can do to help control without putting American planes in the air.”
Zelenskyy isn’t the first Ukrainian leader to appeal to Congress. Former Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko spoke to a Joint Meeting of Congress in September 2014, just months after Russia annexed Crimea.
Poroshenko’s remarks proved prophetic.
“Are we on the eve of the new Cold War? Is the possibility of the new terrible, unimaginable European war there? Is what until recently seen then, unthinkable, now becoming a reality? Sadly, today, the answer to all of these question is yes,” said Poroshenko.
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Poroshenko was trying to goad lawmakers into action eight years ago. The same with Zelenskyy. And to some degree, this was the same challenge facing Churchill in 1941.
“Churchill had been trying to appeal to Americans for the previous two years. But the United States was divided between isolationists and internationalists, especially in Congress,” said former Senate historian Don Ritchie. “They couldn’t decide and they weren’t going to get into the war unless they were thrust into the war.”
Pearl Harbor provided the thrust for the U.S. to enter World War II.
And so far, Zelenskyy’s pleas aren’t enough for the U.S. to get more involved.
