Manzur, the first Argentine official to pose with a Ukrainian flag to condemn the invasion of Russia

The Chief of Staff, Juan Manzur, participated yesterday in a meeting at the residence of the United States Ambassador to Argentina, Marc Stanley. The official photo, which the official spread through his networks, showed him with a Ukrainian flag, along with diplomats from numerous countries, including Ukrainian chargé d'affaires, Sergiy Nebrat.

“We reaffirm the UN position, condemning the invasion of Ukraine; 141 countries demand the cessation of the attack by Russia and the preservation of life as a supreme good,” said Manzur, who thus became the first major cabinet official to pose with the flag of the country under attack by Vladimir Putin's troops.

At the end of February, the Government condemned the attack perpetrated by Russia within the framework of the UN. “Argentina reiterates to the Russian Federation that it immediately cease the use of force and condemns the invasion of Ukraine as well as the military operations on its territory,” Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero said at the time.

During his presentation, the official stated: “What is not legitimate is to resort to the use of force and violate the territorial integrity of another State as a way of resolving a conflict. Preventive wars are condemnable because they are not lawful. There is diplomacy to discuss.”

Beyond this official position, a day later, Cafiero himself assured that Argentina did not align itself with NATO and remains neutral in relation to the war conflict . At the time, he even refused to apply sanctions against Russia as many countries in Europe did: “They are not a mechanism to generate peace”, he assured beginning of March.

In connection with the Russian invasion, yesterday, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, presented to the United States Congress, in where he compared the bombing of Russian troops to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York, while calling on Washington to close airspace in the European nation.

Zelenski expressed himself in these terms during a speech that he gave
videoconference. He also presented a video showing Russia's attacks. “We need more and we need it right now,” requested the head of Ukrainian state, which also asked its American counterpart, Joe Biden, to give it airplanes and more military defense equipment.

“Remember Pearl Harbor, when your sky turned black on December 7, 1941 with the planes attacking you (...). Remember September 11, 2001, when evil tried to turn the cities of the United States into battlefields, and innocent people were attacked from the air as no one had ever expected,” he said in his presentation.

And he added: “Our country is living the same way, every day; right now, right now, for three weeks.”

At the beginning of the videoconference, the Speaker of the House of Representatives requested that those present sing “Slava Ukraini” or “Glory to Ukraine, glory to its heroes”. Despite the ovation he received from US lawmakers - the same thing had happened when he spoke to a packed British House of Commons earlier this month - the nations of the West are refusing to close Ukrainian airspace for the time being.

The fear is that such a measure will trigger direct clashes with Russian forces in Ukraine, which would not only escalate the military conflict, but could also lead to the beginning of a Third World War, as Biden himself, among others, warned.

However, since the beginning of the invasion, the United States, NATO and countries around the world have spoken out against Putin's actions, which is why they imposed various economic, political and social sanctions and restrictions against Russia. In this way, Russia became the most sanctioned nation in the world today.

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