Walls, Dreams and Genocide: Zelensky’s Speeches Invoke History to Rally Support

He told U.S. lawmakers that he had a dream, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to describe Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion. He said to the British Parliament that his country would fight until the end, in forests and fields, a vow resonant of Winston Churchill’s exhortations against Nazism. To members of the German Parliament, he spoke of a new wall dividing Europe, echoing the Berlin Wall of the Cold War.

The passionate speeches, delivered remotely by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in his now-ubiquitous military-issue shirt, are part of a rhetorical effort to rally international support — for arms, or aid to his country, or sanctions against Russia.

Mr. Zelensky, a former comedian who became president in 2019, is no stranger to performing, and his social-media missives and speeches have transformed him into a global symbol of his country’s resistance to Russian aggression. Read more

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