By LISA MASCARO

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address the U.S. Congress, the actor-turned-wartime leader’s latest video speech as he uses the West’s great legislative bodies as a global stage to orchestrate support against Russia’s crushing invasion.

Zelenskyy’s livestreamed address Wednesday into the U.S. Capitol will be among the most important in a very public strategy in which he has invoked Winston Churchill, Hamlet and the power of world opinion in his fight to stop Russia.

Nearing the three-week mark in an ever-escalating war, Zelenskyy has used his campaign to implore allied leaders to “close the sky” to prevent the Russian airstrikes that are devastating his country. It has also put Zelenskyy at odds with President Joe Biden, whose administration has stopped short of providing a no-fly zone or the transfer of military jets from neighboring Poland as the U.S. seeks to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia.

Instead, Biden will deliver his own address following Zelenskyy’s speech, in which he is expected to announce an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine, according to a White House official. That would bring the total announced in the last week alone to $1 billion. It includes money for anti-armor and air-defense weapons, according to the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Appearing in his now-trademark army green T-shirt as he appeals to world leaders, Zelenskyy has emerged as a heroic figure at the center of what many view as the biggest security threat to Europe since World War II. Almost 3 million refugees have fled Ukraine, the fastest exodus in modern times.

The Ukrainian president is no stranger to Congress, having played a central role in Donald Trump’s first impeachment. As president, Trump was accused of withholding security aid to Ukraine as he pressured Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on political rival Biden. Zelenskyy will be speaking to many of the same Republican lawmakers who declined to impeach or convict Trump, but are among the bipartisan groundswell in Congress now clamoring for military aid to Ukraine.

Invoking Shakespeare’s hero last week, Zelenskyy asked the British House of Commons whether Ukraine is “to be or not to be.” On Tuesday, he appealed to “Dear Justin” as he addressed the Canadian Parliament and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Zelenskyy called on European Union leaders at the start of the war to do the politically unthinkable and fast-track Ukraine’s membership — and he has continued to push for more help to save his young democracy than world leaders have so far pledged to do.

”I know he will ask for more help,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Biden has insisted there will be no U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine and has resisted Zelenskyy’s relentless pleas for warplanes as too risky, potentially escalating into a direct confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.

“Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III,” Biden has said.

U.S. defense officials say they are puzzled by Zelenskyy’s demand for more warplanes. They say Ukraine isn’t often flying the planes it has now, while making good use of other weapons the West is providing, including Stinger missiles for shooting down helicopters and other aircraft.

While officials are anticipating that Zelenskyy may once again call on the U.S. and the West for fighter jets or help establishing a no-fly zone, the Biden administration is looking to send Ukraine “more of what’s been working well,” according to an official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Already the Biden administration has sent Ukraine more than 600 Stinger missiles, 2,600 Javelin anti-armor systems, unmanned aerial system tracking radars; grenade launchers, 200 shotguns, 200 machine guns and nearly 40 million rounds of small arms ammunition, along with helicopters, patrol boats, satellite imagery and body armor, helmets, and other tactical gear, the official said.

Even though Zelenskyy and Biden speak almost daily by phone, the Ukrainian president has found a potentially more receptive audience in Congress.

This won’t be the first time he has appealed directly to members of the House and Senate, who have remained remarkably unified in their support of Ukraine. Nearly two weeks ago, Zelenskyy delivered a desperate plea to some 300 lawmakers and staff on a private call that if they could not enforce a no-fly zone, at least send more planes.

“We think the United States needs to do more,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., returning from a weekend visit with other lawmakers to Poland.

Congress has already approved $13.6 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, and the newly announced security aid will come from that allotment, which is part of a broader bill that Biden signed into law Tuesday. But lawmakers expect more aid will be needed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Zelenskyy asked for help in rebuilding his country when they spoke last week. It was in that call that Zelenskyy asked to address the U.S. Congress, something the Democratic leader readily agreed to.

“The Congress, our country and the world are in awe of the people of Ukraine,” said Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement Monday announcing the address.

They said Congress “remains unwavering in our commitment to supporting Ukraine as they face Putin’s cruel and diabolical aggression.”

Zelenskyy’s next stop could be Spain. The speaker of Spain’s Congress of Deputies has invited the Ukrainian president to address Spanish lawmakers via videolink.

In a letter to Zelenskyy, Speaker Meritxell Batet wrote that the address “will be a magnificent opportunity for the chamber, all Spanish people and the thousands of Ukrainians living in Spain to listen to your message and express our firmest support.”

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Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Ellen Knickmeyer and Chris Megerian and Raf Casert in Brussels, Jill Lawless in London, Aritz Parra in Madrid and videojournalist Rick Gentilo contributed to this report.

By MATT O’BRIEN

The Associated Press – It can be hard to measure the ways that Russia’s war in Ukraine has disrupted the global supply of parts and raw materials needed to complete a variety of products – from cars to computer chips.

But cutting off one of those supply links brought a “depressing feeling” to Andrey Bibik, head of the Interpipe steel plant in Dnipro, Ukraine. He spent the first hours of the war winding down his bustling 24-hour operation and sending almost everyone home.

“It’s empty and lonely. You don’t hear a sound. You see everything is frozen,” he said.

Getting Interpipe’s steel transmission pipes to Texas oil companies and its railway wheels to European high-speed train operators has been put on hold. Hundreds of the plant’s roughly 10,000 employees have joined the fight against Russia. Others have fled; a remaining skeleton crew runs its canteens and makes spikey metal obstacles to block Russian tanks and convoys. Its bomb shelters house dozens of local families at night.

“It was a hard choice to stop production. We had plenty of orders, a lot of customers awaiting our material. But if you have to choose between safety, and possible profits, I think the answer is obvious,” said Bibik, who’s worked at the company for nearly two decades. “The most important thing we have is life and we really need to take care of the people we love.”

Similar production halts have spread across other industries in Ukraine, motivated not just by safety concerns but also because the war and mass exodus of refugees have closed off roads and railways to commercial freight traffic. Some of Interpipe’s finished products bound for overseas export are now stalled at the Black Sea port of Odesa.

Ukraine accounts for only about 0.3% of the world’s exports, while Russia’s share is about 1.9%, according to a report by the Dutch bank ING. Still, some industries doing business with these nations are starting to feel the war’s impact.

For Russia, a key producer of energy, steel and raw metals such as nickel, copper, platinum and palladium — many of which are important to the auto industry — the supply concerns are tied to punishing Western economic sanctions and Russia’s moves to retaliate against them. For Ukraine, the war itself is cutting off supplies.

“We want to give priority to the refugees, people trying to move out of the war zone, and humanitarian and military convoys,” said Interpipe’s Houston-based chairman and former CEO Fadi Hraibi.

The disruption of another Ukrainian industry — the making of wiring harnesses used in cars — is already hurting European automakers. Ukraine has more than 30 automotive plants, most of them centered near the western border with Poland and other European neighbors, according to a government agency that promotes foreign investment.

German parts supplier Leoni said production has been interrupted at its two western Ukraine plants in Styri and Kolomyja and that it’s looking for temporary alternatives. “We are aware that this situation is currently affecting not only Leoni, but the entire industry,” said spokesperson Gregor le Claire.

Ukraine is also among the world’s largest suppliers of neon, a gas used in lasers that help etch integrated circuits onto computer chips. That worries auto industry executives, who fear that tight neon supplies could worsen a global chip shortage that has already forced production cuts and made vehicles scarce worldwide.

Interpipe has five factories in Ukraine, all located in the industrial hub of Dnipro and its surrounding oblast, or region, which holds a strategic position on the Dnieper River southeast of the capital, Kyiv.

Until Russian airstrikes began targeting Dnipro on Friday, the country’s fourth-largest city had been mostly quiet — except for occasional air raid sirens — in the two weeks since Russia invaded the country. But executives at Interpipe made a quick decision on Feb. 24 to shut down all of its facilities.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion before dawn and by lunchtime, plant operations were wound down, Bibik said. That evening, he watched the last five workers get shuttled off to the suburb where they live. All of Interpipe’s workers are still being paid, Bibik and Hraibi said.

Interpipe’s customers in the energy and rail industries typically order their pipes, wheels and other products months in advance, but Hraibi said the disruptions will cause shortages and lead some to look for alternatives. For some wheel customers, such a Saudi Arabian railway operator, Interpipe is the sole supplier, he said. Two of the company’s chief steel industry rivals, OMK and Evraz, are in Russia and he hopes customers will avoid them.

“I don’t know if our business will survive,” he said. “We do all that’s necessary to support the people, to keep our employees, to be able to restart in a month or two or three, whenever things get back to — at least closer to — normal. But in reality, nobody can predict what’s going to happen.”

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AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher contributed to this story from Detroit.