Zelenskyy draws parallels between Nazi Germany's invasion of USSR and Russia's war against Ukraine

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on the civilised world to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin's regime in order to bring Russia's war against Ukraine to an end before it surpasses World War II in duration.

Source: Zelenskyy on X (Twitter)

Quote: "Today, as every year on 22 June, there will be a lot of grandstanding in Russia about World War II, about one of its bloodiest chapters – Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. A time that for Ukraine has always been a reminder of the importance of peace and of paying tribute to the millions of innocent victims of World War II. This was the very period in the 20th century that should have forever changed the way every state and the world as a whole view human life – establishing life itself as the true highest value. There would have been no world wars if the leaders of that era had been guided by the value of human life rather than their imperial delusions.

Yet today, Russia began this day not by honouring those who fell in World War II and not with signals that could help bring the current war – Russia's war against Ukraine – closer to an end. Instead, it began with more completely unjustifiable killings."

Details: Zelenskyy noted that in Sumy Oblast, a Russian drone killed a child, his father and his grandmother. The child's mother and two other children from the same family were injured. Their home was destroyed – an ordinary house, not a military target in any way. In Zaporizhzhia, two people were killed overnight in Russian strikes and another seven were injured. There were also casualties in Odesa Oblast, and Kherson, Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts came under attack. And in Chernihiv Oblast, Russian forces struck energy infrastructure once again.

The president stressed that Russia's war has no justifiable cause.

Putin, like the aggressors who came before him, is obsessed with his own delusional and entirely unnecessary "empire", Zelenskyy said.

He emphasised the need to end the war, which has been taking lives for nearly five years now.

Quote: "This full-scale war has already lasted longer than World War I. Perhaps Russia wants to wait until it has lasted longer than World War II as well. But the world certainly does not want that, and it certainly has the power to prevent it. There must be pressure on Putin, pressure on Russia, so that all of this ends in a dignified peace and with real guaranteed protection for human life. Ukraine has put forward every proposal needed for diplomacy. Through our collective pressure on the aggressor, we must bring Russia to a point where it has no option left but diplomacy and ending the war."

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