While Russia’s attacks on Ukraine continued uninterrupted, the leaders came together at the NATO Extraordinary Leaders Summit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also made a speech by connecting to the meeting online.
Underlining that more than a thousand rockets have been fired into Ukraine since February 24, Zelenskiy said:
“Greetings from the capital, Kiev. We are not in NATO, but we defend both our own values and yours. We have been defending these values heroically for a month. Russia has gathered enough troops and army in 10 years. They invested crazy money for the deaths. Ukraine is resisting with thousands of deaths, destroyed buildings and people migrating. Some of our citizens are in NATO countries. In one month they launched more than a thousand rockets and made more than a hundred flights.”
“UKRAINE ARMY RESISTS ON EQUAL AND UNFAIR CONDITIONS”
Zelenskiy stated that he had called for help many times, but that NATO refused to help.
“I applied to you on February 24 to close our airspace. We could not hear a clear answer from you. Ukraine does not have powerful weapons against rockets. We have fewer aircraft than they do, so the Russians are able to launch mass destruction attacks. The Ukrainian army has been resisting on equal and unfair terms for a month. You have a thousand planes, but we couldn’t even get one. You have more than 20 thousand tanks and we asked you to give one percent of it and sell it, but we could not get a clear answer. It is a terrible thing to not get an answer to the calls for help in war. We just want to live. We do not blame NATO. These are your rockets, not your bombs.”
Expressing that everyone saw the standards of the Ukrainian army, Zelenskiy concluded his speech with the following words:
“They hit us with phosphorus bombs this morning. Children and adults died. If it gives us the weapons we want, NATO can protect us from the Russian invasion. NATO knows that Russia will not be limited to Ukraine and is afraid of a Russian attack. The Russians will go as far as the Baltic states and Poland. I’ll be honest with you, the Budapest Memorandum didn’t work on our land. We are grateful for your assistance. You can give us one percent of the planes and tanks you have. When we have these weapons, they will give you and us a hundred percent security guarantee.
After such resistance, never tell us that our army is not up to NATO standards. We showed what our standards are. NATO can also show what it can do for people’s safety. Ukraine is waiting for concrete steps, concrete security guarantee. Our terms are now on the table. Thank you to those who supported us. Long live Ukraine!”
(UAV)