Address by Deputy Chairperson of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Olena Kondratiuk: To close the sky over Ukraine – means to protect the peaceful skies for families and children throughout Europe
Ukrainians expect a decisive and effective response from the international community for crimes against humanity committed by Russia…
Remember that all it takes to celebrate evil is for good people to do nothing.
Today, we Ukrainians have the impression that many influential people who have to make decisions to protect human rights, good and peace are afraid to make decisions.
Every day in Ukraine people die, 38 children have already been killed, one-and-a-half-year-old children die, and world leaders are just waving their hands…
And we have a lot of questions. How did that happen?
As it turned out, Ukraine, the founding member of the United Nations, which for decades has helped maintain peace and provide humanitarian assistance in all hotspots around the world, could not wait for peacekeepers and humanitarian corridors for itself when the war came to our home.
How did it happen that the resolutions of the UN General Assembly on the immediate cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine – are not being implemented and all this is going unpunished?
How did it happen, that hundreds of thousands of people in the capitals of NATO countries are going to rallies, demanding that their authorities close the sky over Ukraine?
And presidents, governments and parliaments, which in democratic societies are obliged to obey citizens, do not listen to them.
If the polls are showing that 74% of Americans, most Europeans say the United States and NATO should close the sky over Ukraine, isn’t that a reason to act?
Is it not clear to the West that the “great European war” has already begun and is continuing. As former Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite rightly put it: “Either you fight the aggressor or you become an accomplice to war crimes simply by standing and watching Ukraine and its people being destroyed”.
Isn’t it clear that the enemy may not stop in Ukraine? Russia can call any European country a so-called threat to its security.
But you can stop this threat today, when it’s not too late.
Close the sky over Ukraine! Deploy the peacekeepers! Provide humanitarian corridors for the innocent citizens of Ukrainian cities that are being wiped off the map.
If you can’t close the sky, even though everyone understands it’s possible! Then provide Ukraine with combat aircraft and modern air defense systems.
But don’t be silent, don’t hide from responsibility behind the bureaucratic procedures, don’t be afraid.
It is time for the world to unite, to protect the right of Ukrainians to live. By defending Ukraine today, by all possible and impossible means, you are protecting a peaceful sky for your families and children.
Otherwise, tomorrow, by its inaction, the world will see the triumph of absolute evil. But I believe and hope that good people will not allow it.
