Since Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has addressed the Parliaments of Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy, Israel and Poland. He also spoke to the European Parliament and addressed the NATO summit in March in Brussels.
On Monday, it was the turn of Romania’s MPs to listen to President Zelensky, via videoconference, who again called for the end of the war. President Zelensky addressed Romania’s Parliament shorty after vising Bucha, near Kyiv, the place where atrocities were reported, blamed on the Russian troops, which have raised consternation and reactions of firm condemnation all over the world. Before the message addressed by the President of Ukraine to the Romanian parliamentarians, footage of war horrors was displayed on the central wall of the plenary hall: corpses on the streets, destroyed buildings, mass graves. In his speech, President Zelensky drew a parallel between the former dictatorial communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, based on intimidation and repression, and the one in Russia, describing it as „inadequate”, one that „has lost all connection with reality”, „willing to sacrifice millions of lives, in order to accomplish its crazy ideas”.
Against this background, Volodymyr Zelensky called for a total embargo against Russia, stating that the European Union must deprive Moscow of any economic and financial resources, in order to make it seek peace with Ukraine and the whole of Europe. Because, in the opinion of the Kyiv leader, Ukraine is not the last target of the Russian aggression; there’s just one step from his country to the neighboring and mostly Romanian – speaking Republic of Moldova.”
„The fate of the whole of Central Europe and the Black Sea region is being decided now, on Ukraine’s territory”, Zelensky said, stressing that „every politician of the democratic world must support Ukraine by any means, with weapons” and „the Russian soldiers must answer for the crimes committed on Ukraine’s occupied territories.”
President Zelensky thanked the Romanian people for helping the refugees and said he was convinced that Romania would participate in Ukraine’s recovery after the war. And, when the situation allows it, he said, there will be a dialogue with Bucharest on the protection of the Ukrainian community in Romania and of the Romanian community in Ukraine.
„I am convinced that just as we take care of your citizens, you will take care of Romanian citizens as well”, Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said, who attended Zelensky’s address. The Speaker of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies, Marcel Ciolacu, stressed that that „ethnic Romanians are fighting, these days, for the freedom of the country where they live and where they are raising their children, which is the sincerest expression of the deep Romanian-Ukrainian connection”. „It is inadmissible what is happening in Ukraine and we have a duty not to remain passive”, the Senate Speaker Florin Citu also stressed.
(Roxana Vasile, Radio Romania International)
