President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky expects the Verkhovna Rada to adopt European integration laws after the EU decision to grant Ukraine candidate status.

"Despite the war, we continue to implement EU legislation, norms and rules in all areas of life. The government will develop a suitable roadmap. The next steps are known - we have recommendations from the European Commission. We expect the Verkhovna Rada to approve, as a matter of priority, European integration laws. From all of you - high civic consciousness, devotion to our values and the realization that no one will build a European Ukraine for us, except us," he said in a video message on Friday morning, the press service of the President's Office reported.

We, he said, "are changing Ukraine for ourselves, not for someone else. We implement reforms not because of someone else's demands, but because of our own convictions. Ukraine seeks not to join but to return to the European family."

Zelensky recalled that "democracy existed here over a thousand years ago. In the days of Kyivan Rus, when the people were involved in solving important issues. Human rights, human life were a value a thousand years ago. Kyivan Rus is perhaps the only medieval state where the death penalty did not exist."

"Today Ukraine is fighting for its freedom. And this war began exactly when Ukraine declared the right to its freedom. The right of choice of our future. We saw it in the European Union. No matter how some convince us that no one needs us there and a happy tomorrow for Ukraine is possible in a completely different union called Customs. And no matter how surprised that Ukrainians know the preference of the will, and not cheap gas. We have chosen the path," he said.

"The path that was determined by our people, and not by anyone's power," the president said.