Friends!

Today in Ukraine celebrate the Day of Victory over Nazism in World War II.

The Second World War forever left its imprint. And not only in the history of Ukraine and the world, but in the fate of every person who lived on this earth.

Human losses among civilians in Ukraine amounted to more than 5 million people, more than 1.5 million of them died as a result of the Holocaust. Approximately 4 million Ukrainian soldiers died in fierce battles. During the Second World War, more than 28,000 villages and 700 cities were destroyed. All these figures are not just terrible statistics. This is the price that Ukrainians paid to help stop the terrible black whirlwind of Nazism.

Friends! Today we honor the memory of all those who died in those terrible years. We thank them for their heroic deeds, for the terrible price that they had to pay for the next generation to live better. Unfortunately, now Ukraine lives in the realities of war again. Our generation as nobody should understand the price of a peaceful sky overhead and respect this day everyone who paid it for us and you during the Second World War.

Never again.