Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday said evil returned to Europe while comparing Russia to Nazi Germany during an address commemorating the Second World War, AFP reported.
“Decades after World War II, darkness has returned to Ukraine, and it has become black and white again,” Zelensky said in a video address, in which he was filmed standing in front of destroyed residential buildings as fighting continued for the 74th day.
“Evil has returned, in a different uniform, under different slogans, but for the same purpose,” he added, in the video showing archive footage of World War II and black and white footage of Russia’s invasion.
He said Moscow’s army was replicating Nazi “atrocities” and giving justification that “aims to give this evil a sacred purpose.”
Victory Day on May 9 is one of Russia’s most important national events -marking the Soviet Union’s win over Nazi Germany in the World War II.
Ukraine still formally marks Victory Day on May 9, but as it has turned westward to Europe since 2014, it has instituted a Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation on May 8 when France, Britain and the United States mark “Victory in Europe Day”.
Zelensky’s video message comes amid ferocious fighting between the Russian and Ukrainian forces for the 74th straight day. Earlier in the day, 60 people were feared dead after a Russian bomb destroyed a school sheltering nearly 90 people in the basement, AP reported.
The governor of Luhansk province, one of two areas that make up the eastern industrial heartland known as the Donbas, said the school in the village of Bilohorivka caught fire after Saturday’s bombing.
