President, First Lady commemorates fallen of Second World War
On the Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in the Second World War of 1939–1945, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska commemorated the fallen. They laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
It is reported that the ceremony was also attended by: Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ruslan Stefanchuk, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak, Minister for Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha, and representatives of diplomatic missions in Ukraine.
Those present observed a moment of silence in memory of the fallen.
“In attempting to appropriate Ukraine, Russia is appropriating another nation’s memory and distorting history. That is why not only today, on the Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism, but always, it is worth remembering: Ukrainians made their great contribution to that victory. They stopped a global evil with their own blood. Because more than 8 million Ukrainians fought against Nazism – not only as part of the Soviet army. Tens of thousands served in the Allied armies. Hundreds of thousands fought in partisan units and resistance movements,” Zelenskyy said on X.
The President noted that all of Ukraine was a “continuous front” in that war.
“In that war, we had no rear – all our land was one continuous frontline, a staging ground, an open wound. Every city, every village suffered. Every home and every family. And we will not surrender this memory to a new, Russian Nazism – just as we will not surrender our present to it. Victory and true remembrance are not with those who hold ‘parades’ but with those on whose side the truth is. Let us honor our contribution to the fight against evil. And our present, in which we are fighting it once again,” the head of the Ukrainian state stressed.