Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, invoking the wartime defiance of British prime minister Winston Churchill, has again vowed to ‘fight to the end’ and not give up in the ongoing war.
The Ukrainian leader made this known in a historic virtual speech to UK lawmakers on Tuesday which was monitored by Africa Daily News, New York.
‘We will not give up and we will not lose,’ he said, giving a day-by-day account of Russia’s invasion that is anchored on the costs in lives of civilians including Ukrainian children.
‘We will fight to the end, at sea, in the air. We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost.
‘We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets,‘ he told the packed chamber, which greeted him with a standing ovation at the start and rose again at the end.
The speech was a conscious echo of Churchill’s landmark address to the House of Commons in June 1940, after British forces were forced to retreat from France in the face of a Nazi German onslaught.
Read Also: I Will Remain In Ukraine, Not Afraid Of Anyone – Zelensky
Africa Daily News, New York reports that Zelensky who was wearing a military-green T-shirt and sitting next to Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow flag, also invoked William Shakespeare as he delivered the chamber’s first-ever virtual speech by a foreign leader.
‘The question for us now is, to be or not to be,’ he said in his 10-minute speech, which followed similar addresses to members of the US Congress and the European Parliament.
‘Now I can give you a definitive answer: it is yes, to be.’
Zelensky, while thanking Western countries for their retaliation against Russia, also noted that NATO had failed to accede to his demands to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
