Ukraine’s president assures “2023 will be the year of victory” on a day when NATO and the EU vow to step up aid to the country and reject China’s peace proposal
The Ukrainian media woke up today with no deaths. The unfortunately usual bulletins about last morning’s bombings or the attacks on the Donbas front have been replaced by news about new American aid to the country, the arrival of the first Leopard tanks from Poland, support from the EU and NATO or festive images, such as the teenager playing the piano in the middle of a market in Kiev.
There is also Yehor. Yehor is a 9-year-old boy, a native of Mariupol, a “son of dungeons”, as his own neighbors euphemistically defined families that have lost their homes and live sheltered in cellars. The little boy is one of thousands of resistance fighters of the new generations for whom President Volodimir Zelensky said this morning that the troops are fighting “so that they have a future in peace and freedom”. Just a year ago, Yehor was home. The war was not long in coming. «We heard an alarm, planes, screams… We just hid. Very loud and loud explosions were heard. I was very scared, I realized that the war had started,” he explains in the Ukrainian “Pravda”. Yehor spins the gripping and dramatic story of someone who sees hell with the innocence and fear of a child. The combination allows you to turn a binge of porridge into the cruel symbol of death. “One day my grandmother cooked porridge and gave it to my great-grandmother. My grandfather had passed away by then. It just bled. My great-grandmother ate nothing. I just didn’t want to. But I ate like never before.”
Stepan is four years older than Yehor. He has returned to Kiev, where his father was left to fight when the Russian siege of the capital began, while he, his sister and his mother fled to safety in Lviv. He recalls that early morning that “the dog was the happiest of them all, he knew nothing and licked us along the way.” His uncle reported on February 24 and marched to the front. He died on June 7 in the battle of Severodonetsk. “I am a patriot. And I would like to join the army if I had the chance, although I know it is impossible because of my age,” he says in the report with an inappropriate maturity that leads him to show an attitude that as horrifying as he is. brave. “I understand that if I defend Ukraine, even if I die, it will actually be just me instead of five or ten civilians,” he explains matter-of-factly.
The choice of Stepan’s father and uncle is what Zelensky praised this morning in a message to the nation broadcast on social networks. Twelve months ago, “millions” of Ukrainians “made the choice” to defend the blue and yellow flag. “We don’t run away, but face each other face to face. Resist and fight,” declared the head of the executive, convinced that 2023 “will be the year of our victory” after the last twelve months of “pain, sorrow, faith and unity.” On February 24, 2022, Zelensky appeared at seven o’clock in the morning in all media and networks of the country to announce that Ukraine had been invaded by Russia. “I addressed you with a short statement. It lasted only 67 seconds. It contained the two most important things, then and now. That Russia has started a large-scale war against us. And that we are strong,” he recalled this Friday. It was the longest day of our lives and also the hardest in our modern history. We woke up early and haven’t slept since.”
The president recalled that many in those early days “foreseen that we would hold out for three days. They threatened that we would no longer exist within 72 hours. But we survived the fourth day, then the fifth, and today we are exactly one year on our feet. “Ukraine has surprised the world, Ukraine has inspired the world, Ukraine has united the world,” he stressed.
It can be concluded from his last words that the ex-republic surprised East and West. The most doubtful thing is that it succeeded in uniting all governments. Zelensky has congratulated himself on the fact that “the international anti-Putin coalition has grown so much”, although analysts from several countries agree that the effect, while huge – just look at the €30,000 million in military aid to the Ukrainian army by NATO and its allies – it is not global.
The war has created a new global arena, analysts say, where the rift between the US and Russia of the former Cold War has turned into a confrontation between the West and the group of countries that clearly support Moscow – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – in addition to the more lukewarm people who, like India, China or other countries in the Asian region, see themselves on the sidelines of the war and maintain contacts with Russia. For example, India is chairing the G20 this year and continues to buy Russian oil as the organization demands an end to the war.
China is a similar case, but in its case it has gone a step further towards its involvement. Xi Jinping’s government on Friday explained the terms of the peace plan that would bring Moscow and Kiev to a negotiating table. The document consists of twelve points and one of the most prominent calls Beijing, as if it were a Solomon arbitrator, for respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and for the end of sanctions against Russia. The proposal recognizes the former’s right to its “sovereignty”, but also “Russia’s legitimate security concerns about NATO’s expansion to the borders of Eastern Europe”.
Of the whole list, it is especially pertinent that China is sending two direct warnings to Putin for the first time: the need to protect international law by protecting Ukrainian citizens and eliminating the nuclear threat from all discussion. Nuclear weapons cannot be used and nuclear war cannot be waged. We must oppose the use or threat of nuclear weapons, as well as the development of biological and chemical weapons by any country, under any circumstances. the text.
Whether the Chinese peace plan will be able to mobilize the two actors in the conflict remains to be seen. Zelensky has already indicated his willingness to meet with the Beijing government. A completely different position is that of NATO and the European Union. Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg assured this Friday that the Asian giant “does not have much credibility because it has not condemned the illegal invasion of Ukraine”, while the EU believes it is a “selective” and “insufficient proposal. ». Stoltenberg and the president of the European Commission have pledged since the Estonia summit that they will continue to bolster aid to Ukraine after assuring Putin has “failed” in his attempt to take over the country. In Ukrainian Pravda, children only ask for things like Angelina, the 14-year-old girl who sings when the sirens blare to turn fear into a game, says: “I don’t know how to stop the war, but I really want to happy to go back to Kiev to celebrate my birthday. I don’t know when and how. I don’t care about the date. The most important thing is to be home with my loved ones.”
Source: La Verdad
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