“A decisive battle for freedom continues in Ukraine” – Government Courier
The world has already armed freedom in Ukraine’s battle against tyranny with powerful sanctions against Russia. But these sanctions have not yet destroyed the potential of the terrorist state, and Russia still hopes that you can withstand the pressure of the free world. Therefore, Kyiv calls on the international community to adopt new sanctions packages against the Kremlin. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the participants of the 26th Forum 2000 conference in Prague with this word.
Forum 2000 was founded in 1996 as a joint the initiative of Czech President Vaclav Havel, Japanese philanthropist Yohei Sasakawa and Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel. Conferences of this initiative are held every year in Prague, and participants are invited to participate prominent thought leaders, Nobel laureates, former and current politicians, business leaders and public activists. this year, conference participants discuss challenges to democracy and responses to them, particularly in Ukraine, which is struggling with Russian aggression. At Forum 2000, the topics of the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine, its European perspective and the investigation of war crimes were discussed.
Opening the Forum 2000, the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Fiala, noted that Russia’s war against Ukraine, like the terrorist attacks in the USA in September 2001, became a turning point for the whole world. And this period, the head of the Czech government is convinced, will forever be associated with the late president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel, who was a co-founder of the Forum 2000 conference. Petro Fiala on assessments that Russia’s attack on Ukraine restored the alliances of Western democracies, as a result of which NATO and the EU expanded and became stronger
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke at the conference via video link. He recalled the dramatic events that unfolded on the streets of the Czech capital in 1968. According to him, then people’s desire for freedom was “destroyed by Soviet tanks in Prague.” However, the world did not feel the scale of this battle and what exactly the Soviet leadership wanted to destroy. “Europe is still forced to overcome the consequences of the fact that tyranny was able to hold on for another 20 years. She was able to hold on thanks to the fact that freedom was not helped. They did not help her to express herself to the fullest. It was not armed as it should have been. And they did not unite for her sake,” said the Ukrainian President together. It is precisely because of that that “supporters of tyranny who lived at that time the illusion arose that freedom would lose to tanks.” According to Volodymyr Zelenskyi, it was this confidence of the invaders in impunity that laid the foundations for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Nowadays, a decisive battle for freedom is going on in Ukraine, and our state is not alone in this battle. “The length of the front line on Ukrainian soil is 2.5 thousand kilometers. Active hostilities with the use of all possible types of weapons continue along the 1,300-kilometer line. Imagine this scale! It’s like the road from Kyiv to Prague,” the President said, the OPU press service reports. Russia uses all its resources, which it still has enough, disregarding international legal norms, conventions and concepts of elementary humanity. Therefore, Ukraine “needs constant support with weapons and ammunition.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyi called on international partners to continue providing financial and military aid to Ukraine and to punish the szlachin regime with new sanctions. “For radiation blackmail at the Zaporizhzhia NPP, Rosatom and the entire nuclear industry of Russia should receive blocking sanctions. Russian nuclear scientists are working to repeat the Chernobyl disaster — this must be punished,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy is convinced.
Kyiv believes that the entire banking system of Russia should be subject to international sanctions. “It is absurd that Russian banks can still work with the global financial system when the Russian state is doing everything to cause the world as much damage as possible,” the President said.
Russia deliberately provoked the energy crisis in Europe by manipulating energy prices to put pressure on democratic countries, shaking their stability and unity. “We must think together how to get through this winter, taking into account the costs in the gas market. No country in Europe — neither Ukraine, nor the Czech Republic, nor anyone else — should be left alone with the gas problem, because this is Russia’s goal. In order not to help me alone,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized.
In Ukraine, it is considered unacceptable that Russian propagandists work in European countries. “Who are they working against? What exactly are they trying to destroy? European democracy!” said the President. He emphasized that it is necessary to take measures so that “not a single Russian propagandist remains on the territory of the EU.” Volodymyr Zelenskyi is convinced that the territory of the European Union should be closed to Russian tourists, “who want Europe to rest from the evil that they indulge in silence at home. Visa restrictions encourage Russian citizens to feel that freedom must be fought for.”