Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to “fight to the end” in a historic virtual speech to UK lawmakers on Tuesday, calling for wartime defiance of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
“We will not give up and we will not give up,” he said, recalling a day-to-day account of Russia’s invasion that was at a cost to the lives of civilians, including Ukrainian children.
“We will fight till the end, in the sea, in the air. We will continue to fight for our land, no matter what, in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets,” he shouted at the end.
The speech was a conscious echo of Churchill’s historic address to the House of Commons in June 1940, when British forces were forced to withdraw from France due to a Nazi German attack.
Zelensky, dressed in a military-green T-shirt and seated next to Ukraine’s blue and yellow flag, also invoked William Shakespeare as he delivered the Chamber’s first virtual speech by a foreign leader.
He said, “Now the question is for us to be or not to be. Now I can give you a definite answer: It is, yes, to be.”
Zelensky also thanked Western countries for retaliating against Russia, saying NATO had failed to comply with their demands to impose a no-fly zone on Ukraine.
“But please increase the pressure of sanctions against this country. And please recognize this country as a terrorist state. And please make sure our skies are safe.”
“Please make sure you do what needs to be done and that is determined by the greatness of your country (UK).”
In response, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said “the House has never heard such speech before in all our centuries of parliamentary democracy”.
“They have shaken the hearts of everyone in this House,” he said, adding that the West was determined to pressure the US and Britain with arms supplies and further sanctions after the announcement of sanctions on Russian oil.
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