Drawing a comparison between his nation’s war with Russia and the biblical story of David and Goliath, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Friday urged Western leaders gathered in Munich not to delay sending military aid, saying, “Goliath must lose.”
Zelenskyy remotely addressed government leaders and military officials gathered for the Munich Security Conference, an annual forum for the international security community to gather and discuss the world’s conflicts. The three-day conference opened Friday, one week before the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president urged the conference to speed up delivery of promised weapons. Comparing his nation to David, the shepherd boy who slew a giant with a rock thrown from a sling, Zelenskyy told the conference, “David defeated Goliath not only by the power of the conversation, but by the power of his actions, and the power of the sling.”
Zelenskyy said he was confident — with the help of its allies, Ukraine can gain victory over “Not only Putin, but Putins — Putins all over the world.”
He told the leaders in attendance, “the ‘Davids of the free world’ make the ‘sling’ stronger so next year they can gather in Munich for the first post war security conference with a free Ukraine and free Europe.”
Just before the conference began Friday, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters the threat of the war in Ukraine — and Russian ambition — “goes beyond Ukraine and other regions in eastern Europe, to the Middle East, Africa, and the Indo Pacific.”
Rising tensions between the United States and China are also expected to be high on the conference agenda after the U.S. military shot down an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon over U.S. territory.
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