“It is impossible to kill Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday on a surprise visit to the southern city of Kherson, which Ukrainian forces recaptured from Russia on Friday after the latter evacuated two days earlier.
“(Russia) has shown the whole world that it can kill. But all of us, our armed forces, our national guard and intelligence services have shown that it is impossible to kill Ukraine,” Volodymyr Zelensky greeted, quoted in a press release. of the Ukrainian presidency.
In front of the press, he also praised the popular reaction: “I am happy that we are in Kherson. Did you see the people? This is the best response, it was spontaneous. The people were waiting for our army.”
“The next step will not be Moscow”
However, in the same statement, the Head of State acknowledged that his country was paying a high price for the conflict. “The price of this war is high. People have been injured, a large number of people have been killed,” he said, pointing to “fierce fighting” to retake Kherson. “Unfortunately they destroyed everything: communications, electricity,” he lamented as well.
But Volodymyr Zelensky felt that this sacrifice was not in vain: “That is why the Russians withdrew or fled. We consider that they fled because our army surrounded the enemy and was in danger, and today we are in Kherson.”
“We are going step by step to all the temporarily occupied territories of our country. (…) It is a long and difficult path,” he added. Asked about the “next step”, the Ukrainian president smiled at first: “Not Moscow.” “We are not interested in going to conquer other countries, we just want to liberate ours,” he said.
The hymn at full lungs
Finally, the Head of State sang the national anthem in Kherson, a liberated city in southern Ukraine, where the blue and yellow flag was raised in front of the regional administration building.
In the video originally posted on Twitter by the Ukrainian presidential chief of staff, Andriï Yermak, we could see Volodymyr Zelensky, with his hand on his heart, singing in front of soldiers and residents the words of the national anthem: “Our enemies will perish “. , like dew in the sun, and also we, brothers, will govern, in our homeland”.
Source: BFM TV
