On a cold winter morning on 10th Dec, 1941 Winston Churchill got on the warship HMS Duke of York  to embark on a perilous journey across the Atlantic Ocean.

After 10 days of voyage through a U-Boat laden Atlantic, the Duke of York moored at Hamptons Road, Virginia on Dec 22, 1941.

Churchill then flew to Washington where he has warmly received by President Roosevelt.

On 26th December, 1941 addressed a Joint Session of the US Congress. As part of his speech Churchill said,

‘ It is quite true that on our side our resources in manpower and materials are far greater than theirs. But only a portion of your resources are as yet mobilized and developed, and we both of us have much to learn in the cruel art of war. We have therefore without doubt a time of tribulation before us. In this same time, some ground will be lost which it will be hard and costly to regain. Many disappointments and unpleasant surprises await us. Many of them will afflict us before the full marshalling of our latent and total power can be accomplished.’

Eight decades later, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has followed in the footsteps of Winston Churchill.

 Zelenskyy like Churchill has taken a perilous journey to visit Washington.

His speech was as powerful as the one by Churchill and included the following on US aid :

‘ Thank you for both financial packages you have already provided us with and the ones you may be willing to decide on. Your money is not charity.

It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.

About Christmas in Ukraine,

‘ Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, Americans, in two days we will celebrate Christmas. Maybe candlelit. Not because it’s more romantic, no, but because there will not be – there will be no electricity.

Millions won’t have neither heating nor running water. All of these will be the result of Russian missile and drone attacks on our energy infrastructure. But we do not complain. We do not judge and compare whose life is easier.

Your well-being is the product of your national security, the result of your struggle for independence and your many victories.

We, Ukrainians, will also go through our war of independence and freedom with dignity and success.’

Churchill knew that Roosevelt faced stiff opposition from the ‘America First’ ( name sound familiar?) Fascist movement headed by the likes of Father Coughlin, Charles Lindbergh and similar, about US involvement in the ‘European War’ and admiration for Herr Hitler… the attack on Pearl Harbour put paid to the efforts of the America First Nazis.

Zelensky faces similar challenges with a US Congress were today some GOP Congress members did not have the decency to stand up and clap with their colleagues and rather chose to sit down and smirk.

In 1941, the Holocaust was mainly still the Holocaust by bullets, the Wannsee Conference finalising the Final Solution was yet to happen and the Nazi Armies had only just failed to take Moscow in Dec 1941.

As we stand now, Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians indiscriminately directly and also indirectly by destroying power infrastructure and related essential infrastructure. The Russian offensive has been only just halted at a terrible price.

Like Hitler in Dec 1941, Putin is planning a spring offensive in the new year. Putin has killed many individually through his henchmen and thousands on the killing fields of Syria and Ukraine.

The Pope has called what is happening in Ukraine is history repeating itself in terms of Nazi extermination in Poland under Operation Reinhardt.

President Zelenskyy and Ukraine is not just in the fight of their lives, the broader fight like at the time of WW2 is a fight against tyranny and oppression.

How much the USA and the world responds in 2023 to recognise this remains to be seen.

Feature Image Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum/NARA