Zelenskyy addresses Ukrainians in a Remembrance Day speech: Evil cannot be appeased

On 8 May, the Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recorded a video from the centre of Kyiv, showing the difference between life on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) and the parade of fear on Red Square in Moscow.

Source: Zelenskyy on social media and the official website of the President of Ukraine

Quote: "The day we mark together with the entire world, with all those who 80 years ago fought for life to ensure that evil would lose, and that it would be ‘never again’. Sadly, three years ago, it happened again – and just like back then, the air-raid siren wailed once more over Kyiv, and evil once again came to our Ukrainian land. On the morning of 24 February, Khreschatyk was empty – no cars, no people. Now, there is life here, you see. Three years ago, when I recorded an Independence Day address, burned Russian vehicles stood here. And that is the only kind of parade evil can get here."

Details: The president said that there would be convoys of tanks, units of murderers marching, the disguised crowd, and half-dead faces looking down on the procession in the capital of the aggressor state. Zelenskyy called them a sect under the name "We Can Do It Again" [a Russian phrase alluding to the Soviet victory in World War II and glorifying war and imperial ambition – ed.]

"You did repeat it. You repeated all that evil. Ukraine saw it. The whole world saw it. Tomorrow, the atrocities of the Nazis will be brought up by the person responsible for mass graves in Bucha. And those who orchestrated the blockade of Mariupol will be the ones talking about the siege of Leningrad. It will be a parade of cynicism. There is just no other way to describe it. A parade of bile and lies. As if it were not dozens of allied states, but Putin personally who defeated Nazism. As if it were he who raised the Victory Banner over the Reichstag in Berlin with his own hands. Thank God Ukraine has broken free from all of this, from this swamp. Thank God Ukraine has not forgotten that 80 years ago, dozens of peoples fought against Nazism," Zelenskyy stressed. 

He reiterated that, sadly, over 8 million Ukrainians were killed in that struggle. And almost every Ukrainian family now has a hero who fought or is fighting against this new evil.

Zelenskyy also talked about the people's memorial on Independence Square.

"And this very important place here – the place of remembrance – shows why this life exists, and why Ukraine is alive, and why it is so strong, and how our people value their heroes. Once, there was only a small plaque here, just an A4 sheet, and there was an inscription: "Place a flag if you know someone who was killed by Russia." Now, this is a place of national memory. And every flag, every portrait, every candle is our gratitude, is our respect. And this, you know, is not a monument made by order. This is a human desire to pay tribute to the best of Ukrainians. And this is yet another proof of the abyss between us and evil. For them, the idol is the old man on Red Square who took the lives of millions. For us, heroes are heroes among us," Zelenskyy stated.

The president emphasised that Russia must radically change, or else the world will have to change, "just as the world did 80 years ago, when it finally became clear to everyone that evil cannot be appeased. It must be fought. Together."

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