Dear Madam President of the Assembly!
Dear attendees!
Ladies and gentlemen of the Assembly!
I am grateful for the invitation to the National Assembly of France and the opportunity to address you today on behalf of our entire country. I greatly appreciate the respect for Ukraine and Ukrainians with which you welcome us. Thank you for that.
Dear France!
These days we honor the bravery of the people and the mutual support of the nations that won the Battle of Normandy. The ones who won. And it is the victory that is still being felt on Omaha Beach, where we were yesterday with the President, with Emmanuel, and other leaders. It is the victorious battle that people remember there and take pride in being able to follow in the footsteps of its participants. The warriors who were very different, from different countries, but equally eager for freedom to prevail. It was precisely such won battles – here in Normandy, and in Eastern Europe, in the northern seas of our continent, and in the skies of Britain, in Southern Europe, and in the underground resistance movements in the countries occupied by the Nazis – that returned Europe to humanity. Without those battles won, there would be nothing, there would be no one, there would be no us – Ukraine, France, all free nations. There would be no free individual in Europe either as a concept or as a possibility of real freedom.
We all remember what Nazism means. If there had been no victory over Nazism, our entire continent would have remained a truly dark stain in history. A source of death for others in the world as well. It was out of those victories – the victories of free nations 80 years ago – that our Europe was born, a continent capable of being a source of hope.
Full text of the address: Office of the President of Ukraine
