Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy evokes Winston Churchill in landmark address to MPs – The Yorkshire Post says

Not even the Queen has been honoured with the unprecedented privilege that was afforded to the Ukrainian president as he made a direct – and emotional – personal appeal to MPs last night to do more to support his war-ravaged country.

As President Zelenskyy addresses MPs, why Ukraine needs more help in our fight against Putin’s fascism – Olena Mandrik

Throughout her 70-year reign, the Queen’s role at Parliament has been largely ceremonial – while just a select handful of presidents and statesmen have been invited to address MPs and peers in Britain’s cradle of democracy.

But the Covid pandemic did force Parliament to embrace new technology and Britain’s law-makers needed to hear directly from a president whose already addressed the US Congress and European Parliament, and whose brave leadership is galvanising the world as the West curtails oil and gas supplies from Russia in a significant escalation of the economic war.

And, while there were echoes of Winston Churchill’s wartime leadership as President Zelenskyy chronicled the conflict, and appealed to Britain to prove its “greatness” by treating Russia as a “terrorist state”, his humility – as innocent children continue to be slaughtered in Ukraine – triggered a show of political unity that is witnessed all too rarely here.

However Ministers and MPs should not be judged by the ovation that they gave their special guest – or the symbolic blue and yellow ribbons that they wore to display their solidarity with Ukrainians. They need to be judged on their actions in the coming days so, in time, they can welcome President Zelenskyy in person at Westminster as the head of a sovereign Ukraine finally free from the threat to its freedom that continues to be posed by Putin’s Russia.

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