When Volodymyr Zelensky arrives in Washington—his first time leaving Ukraine because the Russian invasion final winter—he’ll discover a metropolis that’s much more obsessive about itself than traditional. The Republicans are about to take over the Home with a tiny majority and a passel of empowered kooks, and a congressional committee has really useful {that a} former president of the US be prosecuted for an try and defeat the constitutional switch of energy.
The American drama is essential and the stakes for democracy are excessive, however President Zelensky will contact down in D.C. for a go to to the White Home and a joint tackle to Congress after leaving a battle zone the place he and his compatriots are actually preventing for his or her lives and for the survival of their nation in opposition to a Russian dictator who intends to erase Ukraine as an impartial state from the map.
Washington is already shutting down for the vacations, however the timing of Zelensky’s go to is sensible. Ukrainian cities have been bombarded by the Russians but once more over the previous few days in an try to interrupt the nation’s will to combat. The bottom battle is in any other case in one thing like a strategic pause, as Russian President Vladimir Putin offers his forces time to regroup upfront of what is going to probably be one other set of offensives. Putin is in Belarus—the logical jumping-off level for an additional run at Kyiv—the place he’s making a public present of giving a stomach scratch to his favourite international sheepdog, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
In the US, in the meantime, the Biden administration is about to ship a Patriot air-defense battery to Ukraine, an essential addition to Ukraine’s potential to defend in opposition to Russian air and missile assaults. It is a vital step that can require coaching Ukrainians to function the Patriot system and deepen cooperation between the US, NATO, and the Ukraine. Congress, in the meantime, is about to resolve on sending billions extra in help. Ukraine wants this cash not solely to proceed the combat, but additionally for its individuals to outlive as they face a harsh winter of violence from the person who vows by no means to finish this battle till Ukraine is beneath his management.
It appears obvious that Zelensky determined to make the journey to Washington as a result of he’s frightened in regards to the imminent GOP takeover of the Home. He needs to be. Lots of the Republicans who’re about to turn into members of the bulk—and to chair committees—have descended into reflexive mulishness about Ukraine, opposing no matter it’s that President Joe Biden needs, solely as a matter of partisan showboating. Goaded on by the trolls and contrarians within the conservative press, individuals who professed to care little what was taking place in Ukraine a yr in the past have pledged to train tight “oversight” of U.S. help to Ukraine—as if the biggest battle in Europe since World Struggle II is an over-budget consulting contract in suburban Virginia.
We don’t but know what Zelensky intends to say throughout this go to, notably in his tackle to Congress. If all goes as deliberate he’ll, in fact, obtain a lift within the worldwide group from a handshake with Biden, who has carried out a masterful job of holding the Western alliance collectively within the face of Putin’s threats. (A White Home assembly would additionally probably produce one other jolt of vitriol in Moscow; the final missile barrage was virtually actually a response to the information in regards to the Patriot missiles.) Zelensky is poised to maneuver from being a beleaguered regional chief sending movies from a bunker to taking a spot, effectively deserved and overdue, on the world stage as a statesman greater than equal to the panicking KGB officer who’s attempting to kill him.
The true query, although, is whether or not something Zelensky can say will matter to a Republican Occasion that has determined to torment the ghost of Ronald Reagan by taking sides with a neo-imperial Soviet nostalgist.
General, in fact, rank-and-file Republicans help aiding Ukraine in opposition to Russia. However the Trumpian GOP is now managed by its fringe, the identical activists and first voters who put on the I’d reasonably be a Russian than a Democrat T-shirts. Though a lot of the help for Ukraine (together with the Patriot) is already within the pipeline, GOP grandstanding for the bottom might create extra hazard for Ukraine by encouraging Putin to consider that America’s dedication to freedom will wane over time. Certainly, the Russian president’s choice to invade Ukraine, as The New York Occasions reported this weekend, was predicated partly on his perception within the West’s weak point and brief consideration span.
Republicans performing for his or her base are unlikely to alter their views now. However Zelensky is about to talk to all of America, and his presence in Washington will assist remind people who this isn’t some esoteric foreign-policy tangle, however a brutal, bloody human contest between democracy and authoritarianism. His presence in entrance of a divided Congress would possibly—at the least, we will hope—assist People ignore the cartoonish objections of right-wing pundits and strengthen the broader bipartisan coalition in the US devoted to defending freedom in Europe and all over the world.
The battle in Ukraine shouldn’t be over. When the Ukrainian president speaks on Wednesday, he might be a logo not solely of 1 nation’s wrestle in opposition to the Kremlin, however of the worldwide combat for democracy. Sadly, it’s a combat with a number of fronts—and that features Capitol Hill.
