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KYIV. May 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has submitted a bill to the Verkhovna Rada proposing to establish May 8 as the Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in the Second World War of 1939-1945 and signed a decree on celebrating Europe Day on May 9.
He said that in a video statement on Monday.
According to Zelenskyy, “it is on May 8 that most nations of the world remember the greatness of the victory over the Nazis… It was on May 8, 1945, that the act of unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht entered into force. It is on May 8 that the world honors the memory of all those, whose lives were taken by that war. It is pure history, without ideological admixtures. And it is the history of our people, our allies, the entire free world. Today, we are returning it to our state.”
“We will never forget the contribution of the Ukrainian people to the victory over Nazism. And we will not allow to lie that the victory in that war could have taken place without the participation of any country or people,” he said.
“Today I signed the corresponding decree, and every year tomorrow on May 9 we will honor our historical unity – the unity of all Europeans who destroyed Nazism and will defeat rashism. Unity bringing peace closer,” he said.
The president said “this will be the Day of Europe, which has supported Ukrainians for all nine years of aggression and 439 days of the full-scale invasion. This will be the Day of Europe, which helps us fight in all directions: on the battlefield with weapons and on the diplomatic front – with determination, against missile terror and the winter blackout, in the economy and on the legal front.”
“This will be the Day of Europe – our ally. Which gives shelter to Ukrainian women and children. Which does not encroach on our sovereignty and does not call into question our right to choose our own national path. Which never calls Ukraine a ‘fictional’ or ‘artificial’ entity. And which gives us its weapons so that we can defend ourselves and it – our Europe,” Zelenskyy said.
“Just as then we destroyed evil together, so now we together destroy similar evil. Unfortunately, evil has returned. Although the aggressor is now different, he has the same goal – enslavement or destruction. And just as then we relied on the common strength of free peoples, so now we are fighting against evil together with the free world, together with free Europe,” the president said.
