Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will speak live to Britain’s Parliament via video link on Tuesday afternoon about the brutal invasion of his country by Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the ensuing refugee crisis in Eastern Europe.
Mr Zelensky will address MPs in the House of Commons from 5pm after the speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, had screens returned to the chamber for the first time since the pandemic’s work-from-home orders were in place in order to host him.
“Every parliamentarian wants to hear directly from the president, who will be speaking to us live from Ukraine, so this is an important opportunity for the House,” Sir Lindsay said.
Mr Zelensky’s speech will be broadcast live on Indy TV, on BBC Parliament and the major news networks and otherwise covered extensively online across The Independent.
MPs will wear headsets to hear a translation of his remarks but will not be invited to submit questions.
Mr Zelensky, a former sitcom actor and comedian who was elected in May 2019, has become the unlikely face of the resistance and a hero across the world over the last 13 days for his brave leadership of Ukraine against unprovoked Russian military aggression.
Despite the very real threat to his own life – Mr Zelensky’s assassination is believed to be a key priority for Mr Putin, determined to deal a devastating blow to Ukrainian morale – he has rejected multiple invitations to flee in order to remain in Kyiv with his fellow citizens, projecting a weary but defiant calm, speaking frankly about the horrors unfolding and calling on the international community to do more to intervene and bring an end to Russian hostilites.
He has worked hard to rally his fellow countrymen and women, posting regular videos to social media in which he often appears in the streets of the capital alongside his ministers and advisers clad in military green, an approach that poses a stark contrast to the old-fashioned, dead-eyed television addresses of Mr Putin from the Kremlin, casting the former as a 21st century man of the people and the latter as an isolated Soviet throwback.
While the UK has continued to supply Ukraine with military aid and weapons and has hit Russia with tough economic sanctions, Mr Zelensky is expected to appeal once again to Boris Johnson’s government to support a no-fly zone over his country and to take in more refugees, the UK’s dismal record on offering asylum so far falling well below that of other countries like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova.
His repeated requests for a no-fly zone is the more complicated issue because, while its implementation would effectively eliminate the threat posed by the Russian Air Force, it would require policing by Nato jets, which Moscow would consider an act of war, potentially triggering a much greater conflict over Europe.
It is rare for foreign leaders to address the House of Commons but not unheard of.
Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Aung San Suu Kyi have all done so in the past but Donald Trump – who famously tried to extort Mr Zelensky in 2019, threatening to withhold American military aid unless he was presented with “dirt” on his election rival and eventual successor Joe Biden, leading to his first impeachment – was banned from taking to the lectern by then-speaker John Bercow in 2017.
