The public threats of violence made by Ukraine’s acting president Volodymyr Zelenskyy against the gathering of world leaders in Moscow for the May 9th anniversary celebration of victory over the Nazis, was condemned today by Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico. He called out Zelenskyy, stating: “I reject such threats on security grounds. I fully respect that the safety of participants is an internal matter of the Russian Federation. But if Mr. Zelenskyy thinks that his outbursts will deter foreign delegations from attending, he is deeply mistaken. Still, I had to express my condemnation of such rhetoric.”
“For God’s sake, Ukrainian soldiers also died in large numbers in the Second World War between 1941 and 1945,” Fico went on. So, Moscow’s offer to honor those fighters against the Nazis with a three-day ceasefire was authentic. Rather than Zelenskyy’s castigation of the offer, “on the contrary, the ceasefire proposal should have been accepted when the celebration of the 80th anniversary was discussed. And if one doesn’t want to offer congratulations on the end of the Second World War, then at least remain silent. It is deeply disrespectful when someone tells a country that made the greatest contribution to the victory over fascism and suffered the most unimaginable losses: ‘Go ahead and celebrate, maybe we’ll launch a drone on you or something.’ For me, this is unacceptable.”
