The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, has defended this Wednesday at the presentation of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought that the European Parliament awards every year to reward the defense of Human Rights that Europe and Ukraine design a European «security architecture» to prevent the Russian invasion can be repeated in the future, in addition to claiming special courts to try Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
In his speech accepting the award, which was received with a long ovation by the MEPs, the Ukrainian president stressed that the Russian aggression seeks to deprive Europe of freedom and insisted that the victory against Moscow must ensure that «genocidal policies against the Ukrainian people» cannot be applied in the future.
«Ukraine and Europe have to achieve a new security architecture to ensure international peace and the rule of law, it is part of our moral obligation,» he said in his speech to the plenary of the European Parliament gathered in Strasbourg, France, for the last session of the year.
After denouncing the devastation being caused by the Russian army in areas of the Donbas, such as the city of Bajmut, Zelenski pointed out that Ukraine defends the essential values of the Sakharov prize and asked for support for the initiative to establish special courts to judge the war crimes of the Russian occupants.
«I ask you to support this initiative,» the Ukrainian leader urged, acknowledging that the European Parliament has always been in favor of the idea and insisting that the special court «should become a reality as soon as possible» and its action should extend not only to the material perpetrators of the crimes but to «those who initiated and instigated» the invasion, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The European Parliament recognizes with the Sakharov Prize the struggle and courage of the Ukrainian people in the face of the Russian invasion, in the figure of Zelenski as well as the Ukrainian State Emergency Services; the founder of the medical evaluation unit «Angels of Taira», Yulia Pajevska; human rights activist and president of the Center for Civil Liberties, Oleksandra Matviychuk; the Yellow Ribbon Civil Resistance Movement; and the mayor of the Ukrainian city of Melitopol, occupied by Russian forces, Ivan Fedorov.
Previously, the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, has defended that the institution is on the side of Ukraine against the Russian invasion, stressing that Kiev is waging a war for European values, values that, she said, on the continent are «taken for granted».
The ‘popular’ Maltese has reiterated that Ukrainians deserve the freedoms and democracy enjoyed by Europeans, insisting that sometimes freedom and democracy seem «abstract» issues in Europe, but are clearly perceived in the case of Ukraine to be deprived of them by the Russian military offensive.
