WASHINGTON (AP) - Ukraine first lady Olena Zelenska appealed face to face to U.S. lawmakers Wednesday for more air defense systems to help guard her country's skies, in an unsparing Capitol address showing the blood-stained baby strollers and small crumpled bodies left by Russian bombardment."We want no more airstrikes.
No more missile strikes," Zelenska told Republican and Democratic congressional members in a speech capping a visit to Washington in the stead of her husband, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "Is this too much to ask for?""This is what I'm asking for and what my husband is asking for," she said from the stage of the Capitol's congressional auditorium, showing photos of carnage on an overhead screen that had lawmakers shaking their heads at the scenes. "As parents."Zelenska's Washington meetings with first lady Jill Biden, President Joe Biden and other top administration figures have been among her highest-profile events of the war.
She spent the first two months after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in late February in seclusion with her two children, for safety.Her husband has remained in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, through the war.
He made a powerful address by video to lawmakers in the same auditorium earlier this year, drawing repeated standing ovations.Zelenska repeatedly thanked lawmakers and Biden for the billions of dollars in arms and other support the U.S.