Thread by @bansisharma

Volodymyr Zelensky: Ukraine's Wartime President🙏

"Throughout my entire life, I’ve tried to do everything so Ukrainians smiled," Zelensky said during his inauguration speech. "In the next 5 years, I will do everything so that you, Ukrainians, don’t cry."
axios.com/ukraine-volody…

Five days into Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his courageous nation have already done more to transform the West’s policy toward Russia than 30 years of post-Cold War summits, policy resets and showdowns with Putin.
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The Ukrainian leader’s defiance has inspired the United States and the European Union into going far further – and far faster – in turning Russia into a pariah state than it appeared they were ready to go. Let us take a stock.
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The West has:
📌Promised weapons and ammunition to Ukraine
📌Personally sanctioned Putin
📌Cut off Russia’s central bank from US dollar transactions
📌Kicked key Russian banks out of the vital SWIFT global financial network
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📌Germany has pledged to exceed NATO targets for defense spending
📌Germany has overcome its reticence to send weapons to war zones by vowing to arm Ukrainians fighting Russia’s troops
📌Germany has halted the Nord Stream 2 pipeline
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📌Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a Putin protege, has sided with fellow EU leaders against Putin
📌Another autocrat, Turkish President Erdogan, who had warm ties with Putin, invoked a 1930s convention that could complicate Russia’s Black Sea naval operations
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📌And Britain, after long turning a blind eye to oligarch wealth laundered through swank property in London, is belatedly declaring, in the words of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, “There is no place for dirty money in the UK.”
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Zelensky's heroism has also touched people across the world and set off a torrent of smaller gestures of support. Formula One and European football chiefs have stripped Russia of showpiece events. Russian ballet performances have been canceled in the UK.
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And some US states are pulling Russian-made vodka off the shelves. 83% of Americans said they favored increased economic sanctions against Russia in response to the invasion.
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Few outsiders expected Zelensky, a former comic actor, would morph into a leader to match this moment in his country’s history.
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Still, under the most extreme circumstances, Zelensky is ironically displaying the very values – including a staunch defense of democracy – that would qualify Ukraine for membership in both the European Union and NATO, a path Putin tried to close off with his invasion.
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“They are one of us and we want them in,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in an interview with Euronews on Sunday, referring to Ukraine.
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In what has already become an iconic comment, Zelensky has rejected American offers of an exit to safety, telling the US, according to his country’s embassy in Britain, “The fight is here. I need ammunition. Not a ride.”
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In another poignant message on Sunday, the Ukrainian President warned the rest of the world that although he and his country were in the firing line, he was waging a fight on behalf of worldwide democracy and freedom.

[H/T: Stephen Collinson, CNN]

The End