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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the Russian people to stop their President Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine, while talking about the close ties between the two nations.
Zelensky, speaking in Russian, said Moscow had approved the movement of nearly 200,000 troops on Ukrainian territory, along with thousands of armored vehicles lined up at the border. He said a sudden attack was in danger of becoming “the beginning of a great war on the European continent”.
“You say this is a plan to liberate the people of Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “But the Ukrainian people are free.”
“Ukraine in your news and Ukraine in real life are two completely different countries – and our main difference is real,” Zelensky said. “You are told that we are Nazis ?! How could a people who lost more than 8 million people in the fight against Nazism support Nazism?
“How could I be a Nazi?” Asked Zelensky, who is Jewish, noting that his grandfather spent the entire war as a Soviet soldier but died in an independent Ukraine.
Zelensky said the Russians were being told he was preparing an offensive to retake separatist territory in the Donbas region and “bomb it without question.” But, he asked, who would he attack?
“Luhansk? The house where my best friend’s mother lives? Where is my best friend’s father buried? ” said Zelensky.
“This is our land! This is our story! What are you fighting for and with whom? ” he said. “Many of you have been to Ukraine. Many of you have relatives in Ukraine. Some have studied at Ukrainian universities. Some have become friends with Ukrainians. You know our character. You know our people. You know our principles. ”
“The people of Ukraine want peace,” he said. “The Ukrainian government wants peace.”
He warned the Russians that if their army invaded Ukraine, his nation would be defended.
“We know for a fact that we do not need a war – not a cold one, not a hot one, not an intermediate one,” he said. “But if these forces attack us, if you try to take our place, our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. Not attack – but defense! And in attack, you will see our faces! Not our backs, but our faces! ‘
Zelensky spent most of his speech warning about the costs of the war, which Ukrainian territory has seen before.
“War is a serious tragedy and this tragedy has a huge cost in every sense of the word,” Zelensky said. “People lose money, reputation, quality of life, freedom… but above all people lose their loved ones… They lose themselves.”
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