Republican Senators Share Photos of Zelenskyy On Social Media After Being Asked Not To
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Republican senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Steve Daines of Montana posted pictures of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on their Twitter accounts during the Zoom meeting Saturday morning, writing that they were on a call with him after being explicitly told not to in order to protect his safety.
Zelenskyy”met” with lawmakers in an emergency Zoom meeting Saturday morning.
[Zelenskyy] spoke with more than 300 members of Congress on Saturday, imploring them to ban the importation of Russian oil and to send more jets to his country, according to lawmakers on the call.
The meeting, conducted via Zoom, was the first time Mr. Zelensky had addressed both houses of Congress since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
During the call, Mr. Zelensky waxed defiant, according to lawmakers on the call. He told the lawmakers it might be the last time they see him alive, echoing comments he made last month on a call with European Union leaders.
Mr. Zelensky reiterated a list of his long-sought after demands, including the imposition of a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Western governments have rebuffed the idea as all but impossible, citing the risk of direct conflict between NATO and Russian forces.
Mr. Zelensky told lawmakers that a ban on Russian oil would be “even more powerful” than removing some Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system, according to Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska. This past week, Republicans and Democrats ratcheted up pressure on the White House to prohibit the importation of Russian energy products, even though experts have said such a move would be largely symbolic.
Mr. Zelensky stressed the need for additional planes and drones in the absence of a NATO-led no-fly zone, lawmakers on the call said. His plea came after Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia said they would not send fighter jets to Ukraine.
“Zelensky’s message is simple: ‘Close the skies or give us planes,’” Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said in a statement after the meeting. “Let’s be cleareyed about our options: A no-fly zone means sending American pilots into combat against Russian jets and air defenses — in a battle between nuclear powers that could spiral out of control quickly.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, pledged to Mr. Zelensky during the call that he and Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, were working “very hard in a bipartisan fashion” to quickly approve the $10 billion aid package to Ukraine that the Biden administration requested this past week.
“President Zelensky made a desperate plea for Eastern European countries to provide Russian-made planes to Ukraine,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement. “These planes are very much needed. And I will do all I can to help the administration to facilitate their transfer.”
On the call, Mr. Zelensky also asked for Western governments to impose additional sanctions on Russia. And in a tart aside, he said he believed that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if the penalties recently imposed by the Biden administration and European governments had been enacted in the fall, according to two people familiar with the comments.
Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota excoriated Daines and Rubio in a tweet for their “appalling and reckless ignorance” after posting screenshots of Zelenskyy and several lawmakers while the meeting was still in progress.
Phillips on Saturday also said that lawmakers were asked by the US Ambassador to Ukraine not to share visual details of the meeting to “protect the security” of Zelensky, who remains in a precarious position as he rallies his citizens against the Russian assault on Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Ambassador very intentionally asked each of us on the zoom to NOT share anything on social media during the meeting to protect the security of President Zelenskyy. Appalling and reckless ignorance by two US Senators. https://t.co/geolhKxbLp
— Rep. Dean Phillips ???????? (@RepDeanPhillips) March 5, 2022
“The Ukrainian Ambassador very intentionally asked each of us on the zoom to NOT share anything on social media during the meeting to protect the security of President Zelenskyy,” Phillips wrote on Twitter.
He added: “Appalling and reckless ignorance by two US Senators.”
Rubio posted a screenshot on Twitter of Zelensky: “On zoom call now with President Zelensky of #Ukraine.”
“The lack of discipline in Congress is truly astounding,” Crow wrote. “If an embattled wartime leader asks you to keep quiet about a meeting, you better keep quiet about the meeting. I’m not saying a damn thing. Lives are at stake.”
In separate statements, representatives for Rubio and Daines defended the senators’ decision to share the photos, calling those who make an issue out of their tweets “partisan.”
“There were over 160 members of Congress on a widely reported Zoom call. There was no identifying information of any kind,” said a spokesperson for Rubio.
A spokesperson for Daines said his tweet, which was posted about 23 minutes after the meeting started, was “shared well into the call … before it was requested not to” and contained “no identifying information.”
