Jim Fouts, the mayor of Warren, Mich., addresses dozens of Ukrainian Americans at City Hall Wednesday, March 16, 2022, in Warren, Mich. Fouts said "we can never overlook the dangers posed by ignoring what is going on in Ukraine."
Americans reacted with empathy, pain, frustration and in some cases anger Wednesday to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s impassioned speech to the U.S. Congress pleading for more aid for a nation and a people under bloody siege, AP reports.
Across the country, thousands shared video of Zelenskyy’s speech on social media, many especially pained by a clip he shared of bloodied children in hospitals, bodies in neighborhood streets, crumbling facades of apartment buildings and a ditch where the dead of war were being buried.
Many were struck by Zelenskyy’s comment that “I see no sense in life if it cannot stop the death.”
Eric Bottoms, a day trader from North Little Rock, Arkansas, said after watching the speech that America has an obligation to protect the citizens of Ukraine because Russian President Putin is “purposely targeting” them.
“It’s morally the right thing to do,” Bottoms said, comparing relative inaction to failing to stop Nazi Germany’s early aggressions in the last century. “If we’d done something earlier, how many more lives could have been saved?”
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