Russia should neither benefit from nor be rewarded for this war and should not escape rightful accountability for what it has done. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized this during his address at the Bucha Summit.
The Head of State noted that three years ago, the world began to truly grasp the full scale of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine when it saw civilians killed in the streets of Bucha and the evidence of abuse and torture.
“This evidence showed that this is not just a war of one state against another – but a full-scale confrontation between two systems: our shared European system, where human life and dignity matter, and the Russian system, where anyone can be killed, anyone can be abused, anyone can be deprived of their home,” the President said.
The crimes of the Russian system in many other Ukrainian cities and villages stand as further proof – from Yahidne in the Chernihiv region, where Russian occupiers kept all the village residents in a small school basement for over three weeks, to Mariupol, which was devastated and completely burned by Russian strikes. More than 183,000 crimes related to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine have been officially documented – and that’s not including a significant portion of temporarily occupied territories that remain inaccessible. In those areas, there are likely thousands, even tens or hundreds of thousands, more crimes and losses.
“We will not forgive Russia's crimes and all this war, because to forgive would mean to agree that a system like the current Russian one – a system that feeds on people – supposedly has the right to exist and to expand at the expense of other nations,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted.
According to the President, we need an effective international law to guarantee the protection of our people and all European society from such threats. Justice must be served to prevent evil from proliferating. Pressure on Russia and sanctions against it are necessary to ensure that the war and abuse do not expand further.
The Head of State called on foreign parliaments to continue supporting Ukraine’s defense and its pursuit of peace, to help spread the truth about the war, and to back all efforts necessary for a dignified peace and real accountability for war criminals.
