Stay strong Zelensky at the bedside of Ukrainian soldiers in a New York hospital An unprecedented scene in New York for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: he was at a city hospital on Monday night at the bedside of his army soldiers who were seriously injured, but whom he encouraged to quickly return to Ukraine to defeat Russia.
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This exceptional visit, before attending the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, had been kept secret: at the Staten Island University Hospital, the smallest district of the megacity, Zelensky, under the maximum security measures of American authorities, spent a few minutes in detention with some of his men who had had legs or arms amputated and were severely disabled.
In a large rehabilitation room equipped with numerous medical and sports equipment, the Ukrainian president observed with empathy how some of his uniformed men again practiced walking, standing, repeating simple movements or lifting loads, with their new prosthetics. leg or arm.
“How are you? Is it difficult?” —The Ukrainian president asks one of his men, dressed in his sweatshirt and khaki pants.
AFP
“It’s okay,” the seriously wounded young soldier, originally from Zaporizhia, simply responds. “Stay strong!” Zelensky tells him as a way of comfort and encouragement.
Then he addresses the small group of Ukrainians receiving treatment in this American facility, under the gaze of its medical staff and officials of the country at war: “We are grateful to you and we are proud of you,” he tells them in Ukrainian.
Nine Ukrainian patients are currently being treated and 35 have been treated in total since last October, according to officials at Staten Island University Hospital and the Ukrainian-American NGO “Kind Deeds,” which developed this program to provide prosthetics to amputee soldiers.
AFP
During a brief speech in English, Zelensky expressed his “gratitude to American doctors” and expressed the gratitude of “our entire country.”
He then presented a decoration to each of the soldiers, one of whom was visibly very weak in a wheelchair, before being photographed and filmed with the group of wounded and their carers.
Speaking before his men, American medical personnel and some journalists, the Ukrainian head of state stressed that he had “never seen people who wanted to return home so much.”
“We are waiting for all of you to return home, we absolutely need every one of you, every solid Ukrainian fighter to defeat our enemy,” he insisted, saying he was “convinced” that victory over the Russian armed forces “was obviously arriving”.
“I wish you victory and return home. “Glory to Ukraine!” said Volodymyr Zelensky, to which the soldiers responded in unison: “Glory to the heroes!”
AFP
The president of Ukraine will take the UN podium for the first time on Tuesday.
A year ago, he received exceptional authorization to intervene via video message. This time he will be there in person, for the high-level session of the annual United Nations General Assembly and a special meeting of the Security Council on Wednesday, before leaving for Washington, where he will be received at the White House on Thursday. .
When asked by journalists about the meaning of this presence at the UN, Zelensky responded: “For us it is very important that our words, all our messages, are heard by our partners.”
But “if in the United Nations, and it is a shame, there is still a place for Russian terrorists, then the question should not be addressed to me, but should be posed to all members of the United Nations,” he concluded. , while Russia is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
