The Speaker of the Parliament, who visited Kyiv last week, gave a speech in the Ukrainian Parliament entirely in Ukrainian on Saturday.
Speaker of the Parliament Jussi Halla-ahon (ps.)’s speech on Saturday in the Verkhovna Rada, i.e. the Ukrainian parliament, spawned a lot of admiring comments on social media over the weekend.
Along with the content, the Ukrainian commentators paid attention to Halla-aho’s language skills, as the speech was entirely in Ukrainian.
“His pronunciation is impressive”, “I am enchanted by the speaker of the Finnish Parliament”, “The Finnish politician speaks pure Ukrainian, and we have citizens who do not bother to learn our national language” – this is how users of the messaging service X (formerly Twitter) reacted to Halla-aho’s speech.
Video of the speech by the reporter on Saturday Viktor Kovalenko published on X, by Monday already collected almost a million views.
– Who else among the world’s political leaders can give a speech in such perfect Ukrainian? asks Kovalenko in his tweet.
Speech on Holodomor Memorial Day
Halla-aho gave his speech on the commemoration of the Holodomor famine that hit Ukraine in the 1930s.
According to Halla-aho, Russia’s attack on Ukraine awakened Finns’ memories of their own wars and that Finland is ready to help Ukraine as long as necessary.
– Russia believes that it has the right to veto the choice of its neighbors or their existence. Russia appreciates and understands strength. Russian imperialism must be met with force, Halla-aho said.
The speaker also said that a large number of MPs and the chairmen of all parliamentary groups signed a joint statement stating that the Holodomor famine should be considered a genocide.
The Ukrainian councilors gave Halla-aho a standing ovation. You can find a translation of the entire speech into English From the website of Verhovna Rada.
The first in Finland to tell about the reception of Halla-aho’s speech in Finland Evening News.