Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recorded a video address marking the fourth anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“Today marks exactly four years since Putin took Kyiv in three days. And this really says a lot about our resistance, about how Ukraine has been fighting all this time. Behind these words are millions of our people. Behind these words are great courage, extremely hard work, resilience, and the long road that Ukraine has been travelling since February 24,” he said.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy also showed his office in a bunker in the government complex in Kyiv. According to him, it was there that he heard a proposal to leave the capital and decided to stay.
“This office, this small room in the bunker on Bankova Street — this is where my first conversations with world leaders took place at the beginning of the war. Here I spoke with President Biden, and it was here that I heard: ‘Volodymyr, there is a threat, you urgently need to leave Ukraine. We are ready to help with that.’ And I replied that I needed weapons, not a taxi,” he said.
The Ukrainian president stressed that the people of the country chose resistance.
“Our people did not raise the white flag, they defended the blue and yellow. And the occupiers, who thought they would be greeted here with lines of flowers, saw lines at military enlistment offices. Our people chose resistance. And our warriors — they stood firm, and civilians defended cities, defended our villages, streets, courtyards, ordinary people, absolutely, with living walls stopped columns of military equipment. And all together they showed lost Russia the only correct road,” he added.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy recalled the course of the war over the past four years, listing Russia’s war crimes. He also noted that Ukraine had gone from a moment when it was being supplied with body armour to a moment when it itself produces more than three million FPV drones a year, as well as other drones and missiles.
“Putin understands that he is unable to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield, and the ‘second army of the world’ is fighting apartment buildings and power plants. And now Ukrainians are enduring the hardest winter in history. And terror almost every night. And I do not know who else could endure this, not break, not falter. Ukrainians are doing it. There is great fatigue, of course. What other nation could do this? Despite the war, all these attacks, all the trials, to defeat evil, to defeat despondency and despair. And to hold on. And to hold on in unity,” he said.
Zelenskyy also thanked every world leader who has supported Ukraine. He noted that he would like to come to the bunker with US President Donald Trump.
“I know for sure: only by coming to Ukraine and seeing our life and our struggle with your own eyes, feeling our people and this sea of pain — only then can one understand what this war is really about. And because of whom. Who is the aggressor here. Who needs to be pressured.
To understand that Ukraine is defending life, fighting precisely for this. And this is not a street fight. This is an attack by a sick state on a sovereign one, and to understand that Putin is this war. He is the reason for its beginning and the obstacle to its end. And it is Russia that must be put in its place so that real peace can exist,” he said.
“We are defending our land, life, independence, our culture, history, our Sophia, our own people. 1,462 days of full-scale war. Twelve years since the start of Russia’s aggression. For some, an entire lifetime. Of course, we all want the war to end. But no one will allow Ukraine to end. We want peace. Strong, dignified, long-lasting. And before every round of negotiations I give our team very clear directives.
These are always set out in closed instructions, but I will not reveal a state secret if I say my main message: not to erase all these years, not to devalue the entire struggle, courage, dignity, everything Ukraine has gone through. This cannot be given away, forgotten, betrayed. That is why there are so many rounds of negotiations and a battle for every word, for every point, for real security guarantees, so that the deal is strong. History is watching us closely. The agreement must not simply be signed — it must be accepted, accepted by Ukrainians,” he continued.
