Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was Monday evening in a New York hospital at the bedside of seriously injured soldiers from his army, but whom he encouraged to return quickly to Ukraine to defeat Russia. In the Staten Island University Hospital, the smallest district of the megacity, the leader, under very high security from American law enforcement, spent a few minutes in restraint with some of his men who had amputated legs or arms. and severely disabled.
“How are you? Is it hard?” the Ukrainian president asks one of his men, dressed in his khaki-colored sweatshirt and pants. “It’s okay,” simply replies the seriously injured young soldier, originally from Zaporizhia. “Stay strong!” Volodymyr Zelensky tells him. He then addresses the small group of Ukrainians being treated in this American establishment: “We are grateful to you and 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 executives from Staten Island University Hospital and the Ukrainian-American NGO “Kind Deeds”. Volodymyr Zelensky gave each of the soldiers, one of them visibly very weakened in a wheelchair, a decoration, before having his photo taken and filmed with the group of wounded and their caregivers.
The Ukrainian head of state stressed that he had “never seen people who wanted so much to return home”. “We are waiting for you all to return home, we absolutely need each of you, each solid Ukrainian fighter to defeat our enemy,” he insisted, saying he was “convinced” that victory over the Russian armed forces were “obviously coming”. “I wish you victory and return home. Glory to Ukraine!”, Volodymyr Zelensky said again, to which the soldiers responded as one: “Glory to the heroes!”.