On May 8, the Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism, President Volodymyr Zelensky published an address honoring the victims of World War II and reflecting on the legacy of the victory over Nazism amid Ukraine’s ongoing war against Russian aggression.
You can read the full statement below.
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Today is the Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism. A day when all of Europe marks the end of the most terrible war of the 20th century – a war after which there was meant to be only true peace. That was the dream at the time, as the guns of the Second World War began to fall silent.
But that war turned our land into a battlefield of brutal fighting, atrocities in occupied territories, mass destruction of people and life. The losses of the Ukrainian people were among the greatest in the Second World War. And Ukrainians also made one of the largest contributions to the defeat of the Nazis. Millions of Ukrainians, serving in different armies of the Allied coalition states, fought against Nazism. Millions of Ukrainians were among the victors, doing everything possible to ensure that total evil was defeated.
Unfortunately, 81 years later we are once again forced to stop evil – also total evil, which brings nothing but ruin and cruelty, and which is based on a similar ideology of hatred. An updated version of Nazism, branded: “made in Russia.”
Defeating such Russian aggression today can and must be achieved by a united free world. And I am grateful to everyone who helps us protect life. Grateful to everyone who prevents this Russian regime from dictating to the world what comes next. Protecting human life and the freedom of nations from Putin is a completely worthy tribute to those who did not allow Hitler to subjugate Europe and the world.
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