Zelenskyi plays a video about the horrors of the Russian war to Congress

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy played a heartbreaking video to Congress about the toll Russia’s war has taken on his nation as he pleaded for more aid from the US on Wednesday.

“I ask you to watch a video – a video about what the Russian troops did in our country,” said Zelenskyy said the legislature who gave him a standing ovation both before and after his landmark virtual address.

Over heartbreaking classical strings, the graphic footage showed Ukraine’s historic cities in happier times – interspersed with some of the most harrowing moments of death and destruction inflicted by invading forces.

The montage showed administrative buildings and civilian apartment blocks exploding and bursting into flames from repeated deadly airstrikes, including the horror when a maternity hospital in Mariupol was blown up a week ago, killing women and children.

The footage also showed the overwhelming trauma for children trapped in war, crying as they were forced to flee their homes – or worse, when they were fatally injured in airstrikes and gunfire.

Children were among some of the bodies featured in the clip, and medical workers wept at the helplessness of saving some.

Other bodies were still shown lying in the streets – or dumped in mass graves dug to deal with the dead in Mariupol, where local leaders insist the number is in the thousands.

“This is murder,” the video says at one point.

“We have to prevent that. We have to stop it,” Zelenskyi told MPs shortly before the clip was broadcast.

The video was titled “Close the skies over Ukraine” – a constant appeal from Ukraine to help stop the rocket fire.

“President Biden, you are the leader of your great nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world – to be the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace,” said Zelenskyy.

The 44-year-old leader had cited Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terrorist attacks when telling lawmakers, “We need you now.”

“I urge you to do more,” he said.

“Today, the Ukrainian people are not only defending Ukraine – we are fighting for the values ​​of Europe and the world,” he said.