Olena Zelenska has warned that without continued financial support from the West, Ukraine will be “left to die.”
Zelenska, the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, spoke to the BBC a day after Republican senators in the U.S. blocked a bill which would have provided more than $60 billion worth of support to Ukraine as it fends off Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“If the world gets tired, they will simply let us die,” she said. “It hurts us greatly to see the signs that the passionate willingness to help may fade.”
The White House has warned that U.S. funds for Ukraine could soon run out, with President Joe Biden adding that the failure to support Ukraine would be a “gift” for Russian President Vladimir Putin and that history would “judge harshly those who turned their back on freedom’s cause.” Those remarks were echoed by Britain’s new Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Thursday, who said that blocking aid would be a “Christmas present” for Putin.
“We really need the help,” Zelenska told the BBC in an interview that will be broadcast in full on Sunday. “In simple words, we cannot get tired of this situation, because if we do, we die.”
Republicans in both chambers of the U.S. Congress had demanded stricter border regulations in exchange for their support for a $110.5 billion foreign aid bill. The bill failed to meet their requirements, they said.
