Analysis: Zelensky’s address to Congress comes at cruel turning point of the Ukraine conflict

Zelensky’s relentless media campaign and courage in staying in Kyiv to fight alongside his people prompted the world’s democracies to rush anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons into the country and to crush the Russian economy in a far more robust response than was expected. But his appeals for more help, which are expected to dominate his address to the US Congress and the American people on Wednesday, will also lay bare Ukraine’s developing tragedy.

The measures the warrior President says his country needs to survive — like NATO-enforced no-fly zones and Soviet-era jets from ex-Warsaw Pact states that are now part of the West — are seen by the Biden administration as a step too far because they could antagonize Moscow and drag the US into a dangerous escalation with its nuclear-armed rival.

“Can you imagine when you call your friends, your friendly nation, and you ask: ‘Please close the sky, close the airspace. Please stop the bombing. How many more cruise missiles have to fall on our cities until you make this happen?’ And they, in return, they express their deep concerns about the situation,” he said.

Zelensky’s heartrending daily appeals, alongside the horrifying images of civilian casualties, are making it impossible to ignore the torment of Ukraine and its people. If the worst happens and he ends up being killed — as he has candidly admitted is a real possibility — and Ukraine falls, addresses like the one to US lawmakers will stand as an indictment of Putin’s barbarism and of a global system that was unable to stop it.