POLICY

President of Ukraine

Address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Ukrainians.

Today we have good news. Our defenders are advancing in the Kyiv region, regaining control over Ukrainian territory. Irpin was liberated and the occupiers are pushed away. Pushed away from Kyiv.

However, it is too early to talk about security in this part of our region. The fighting continues.

Russian troops control the north of Kyiv, have the resources and manpower. They are trying to restore the destroyed units. The level of their losses, even at 90%, do not convince them that this will happen to everyone.

Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv regions, Donbas, southern Ukraine - the situation everywhere remains tense.

As of today, 143 children are known to have died. Mariupol remains blocked. Russian troops did not allow any humanitarian corridor to be organized today, they did not allow "silence". Therefore, the situation must now be perceived in a balanced, wise way. We still need time and weapons. We can't set expectations too high. Just so as not to burn out.

I spoke with the leaders of the partner countries. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Johnson, Prime Minister of Canada Trudeau, Chancellor of Germany Scholz, Prime Minister of Italy Draghi and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.

We agreed with Britain to further support our defense and strengthen sanctions against the Russian Federation. Canada also supports a tougher response from the world to the catastrophe created by Russian troops in Ukrainian cities.

In a conversation with German Chancellor Scholz, I also paid considerable attention to the need to increase sanction pressure on Russia.

I thanked the President of Azerbaijan for the humanitarian support provided to Ukraine, informed about the state of affairs in the territories where Russian troops entered.

Italy has agreed to become one of the guarantors of Ukraine's security in the relevant new system of guarantees that we are elaborating.

Ukraine cannot and will not agree with the passive sanctions position of some entities towards Russia. There should be no "suspended" sanctions packages. 

We went through this story last year when we said that strong preventive sanctions against Russia were needed to prevent an invasion. The preventive package was not made. A full-scale war has begun. There are now many hints and warnings that sanctions will be tightened, such as an embargo on Russian oil supplies to Europe, if Russia uses chemical weapons. There are simply no words.

We, living people, have to wait for chemical weapons … Doesn't everything that the Russian military is doing and has already done deserve an oil embargo? Don't phosphorus bombs deserve that? Do the shelled chemical production or nuclear power plant deserve that?

It is important for us that the sanctions packages are effective and substantial enough, given what is already being done against Ukraine by the Russian Federation.

Starting this week, we are creating a group of experts at the President's Office - Ukrainian and international, who will constantly analyze the sanctions against Russia - what they really influence.

Our goal is for the sanctions to work as intended. And so that there is no possibility to circumvent them. This must be a goal for the whole democratic world, without exception.

During the week I will speak in the parliaments of the partner countries: Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Greece, Australia. It is important that these are speeches not only in front of politicians, but also in front of societies.

I will emphasize everywhere that no one has the right to use the lives of Ukrainians to save any income in Russia or income common with Russia. Ukrainians should not die just because someone cannot find enough courage to hand over the necessary weapons to Ukraine.

Fear always makes you an accomplice. If someone is afraid of Russia, if he or she is afraid to make the necessary decisions that are important to us, in particular for us to get planes, tanks, necessary artillery, shells, it makes these people responsible for the catastrophe created by Russian troops in our cities, too.

Full address: https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/mi-povinni-borotisya-nam-ne-mozhna-vipalyuvati-emociyi-shob-73913

Speech by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Folketing

Mr. Speaker!

Mrs. Prime Minister! 

Members of the Government and the Folketing!

Danish people!

40 missiles.

Every day, Russian troops use so many different but equally deadly missiles against our state, against Ukraine.

This is the average number per day. 40. More than 1,370 missiles have been used in just over a month of Russia's full-scale invasion of our land.

This morning the Russian missiles hit one of our southern cities - Mykolaiv. The city of shipbuilders.

Absolutely peaceful city, which dreamed of only one thing - to regain the glory of the center of shipbuilding in the Black Sea region.

As a result of this strike, the building of the regional administration was destroyed. It is known that seven people were killed and 22 were wounded. Debris removal continues.

The Mykolaiv region residents didn't have any military dreams. They posed no threat to Russia.

But they, like all other Ukrainians, believe me, have become a target for Russian troops. For missiles, bombs, rocket artillery, mortars.

The total number of means of destruction that Russian troops have already used against our people on our land is simply impossible to count.

But we can say that the intensity and brutality of the hostilities against us have reached a level even higher than during World War II. The most devastating war for Europe.

A month of hostilities - and we already have not one or two, but a whole black list of cities that were completely destroyed by Russian bombing.

In dozens of other cities, towns and small villages, residential areas were partially burned, infrastructure was destroyed and enterprises where people worked were blown up. Living, ordinary people.

773 educational institutions - universities, schools, kindergartens - were destroyed. 773. Imagine! And dozens of hospitals, churches, even memorials to Holocaust victims have become targets...

The goal of Russian troops in this war is to completely destroy any basis for the normal life of the Ukrainian people. The occupiers are deliberately making sure that nothing is left of Ukraine. Only ruins. Only refugees.

More than 10 million Ukrainians have already fled their homes due to the hostilities. Almost 4 million Ukrainians have left our country, most of them women and children.

The stories of these people are full of horror.

There are still many burned and shot cars on the roadsides in the areas where the Russian military came. Hundreds and hundreds of such cars, what’s left of them. The occupiers were killing civilians even when they were just trying to escape!

Along with our immigrants in Europe and the western regions of Ukraine, there are children who were simply picked up on the road near the corpses of their parents.

Up to 100,000 people remain in our city of Mariupol, which has been blocked by Russian troops for more than three weeks. While there was snow people melted it to get water. All this time we can't deliver humanitarian goods to the city - they are simply blocked. Water, food, medicine. Everything is blocked by the Russian military.

More than 90 percent of all buildings in Mariupol were completely destroyed by shelling and bombs. But Russian aircraft strike without stopping. They purposefully blow up even shelters, although they know for sure that peaceful people are hiding there - women, children, old people.

What Russian troops are doing to Mariupol is a crime against humanity that is being committed live in front of the eyes of the entire planet.

Why is this even possible? Why can't the world stop this flow of Russia's war crimes ongoing since February 24 this year?

The answer is very simple and cynical.