Early in the war, Zelensky called repeatedly and publicly on the United States and other Western countries to do more — to send additional weapons and impose harsher sanctions on Russia — even as Biden and Congress were already sending unprecedented amounts of aid and advanced weapons to Kyiv.Biden understood as a fellow politician that Zelensky had to advocate forcefully for his people, but he also told the Ukrainian leader privately that it would be hard for him to keep asking Congress for money if Zelensky appeared ungrateful and kept saying it was not enough, according to a former White House official.