After speaking to the British House of Commons on March 8, and a few hours before addressing the American Congress, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, was invited on Tuesday March 15 to an exceptional session of the Canadian Parliament. On the twentieth day of the outbreak of the war, by videoconference from kyiv, the Ukrainian leader, all dressed in khaki green, delivered a ten-minute speech full of emotion, to tell Canadian deputies and senators the reality of the war.
« I want you to feel what we feel “, he launched to them. « Since the start of this war, 97 children have died.and ” every night is a nightmare,” he said, describing bombings of hospitals and day care centres, 4 a.m. explosions in residential areas of cities, fires at nuclear power plants, water and electricity cuts, hunger which now affects the inhabitants of Mariupol.
« Imagine the questions of your children who wonder what is happening”, “imagine”, repeated Volodymyr Zelensky several times, multiplying the parallels with Canadian cities:
“Imagine Vancouver under siege (…), imagine Montreal airport being bombed (…), imagine the CN Tower in Toronto hit by Russian bombs, that’s our reality. »
“How many attacks will it take before taking these measures? »
So many images intended to support his request that a no-fly zone be consecrated in the Ukrainian sky: “You provide us with military and humanitarian aid, you have implemented severe sanctions, but we see that, unfortunately, this does not end the war (…). How many attacks will it take before taking these steps ? »
And to add: “We are not asking for much. We ask for real support, which will help us win. »
Acclaimed for long minutes
Canadian parliamentarians, a yellow and blue ribbon in their buttonholes as support, cheered, standing, for long minutes, his intervention, some deputies launching vigorous Slava Ukraine! » (“Glory to Ukraine”).
A few minutes earlier, the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, had opened this exceptional session by welcoming, from a distance, Volodymyr Zelensky, qualifying him as “courageous and exceptional leader”. “Your courage and the courage of your people inspire us all. You defend the right of Ukrainians to choose their own future. And in doing so, you uphold the values that form the pillars of all free and democratic countries,” he told her, without, however, mentioning the request for air exclusion. Last week, during an interview on the English-language public channel CTV, like his partners in the Atlantic Alliance, he had ruled out in advance of responding favorably to the Ukrainian request: “ It’s heartbreaking, had he let go, we cannot do that, because the risk of escalation is too high if we send NATO planes into the skies of Ukraine to shoot down Russian planes. »
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