President Zelensky’s Commons speech

‘Our fight for survival is like Britain’s against the Nazis’

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky compared his country’s fi ght for survival to Britain’s fi ght against the Nazis in a live address to MPs and peers in the Commons, writes Lee Harpin.

As his country continued to battle the Russian invasion, Zelensky, who is Jewish, said via a video link: “We do not want to lose what is ours, our country, Ukraine, just the same way you once didn’t want to lose your country when Nazis started to fi ght your country.”

Echoing the spirit and words of wartime leader Winston Churchill, he added: “We will continue fi ghting for our land, whatever the cost. We will fi ght in the forests, the fi elds, the shores and in the streets.”

Zelensky said his people have shown a “heroic” e ort against Russian forces. “Shelling didn’t break us,” he told the packed chamber.

During his fi ve-minute address, Zelensky asked Boris Johnson to “increase the pressure of sanctions”

MPs and peers give President Volodymyr Zelensky a standing ovation

on Russia and for the UK and to recognise Russia as a terrorist state.

Zelensky said sanctions were welcome but were not enough and called for a no-fl y zone over Ukraine.

The decision by the International Criminal Court to investigate Russia for war crimes gave them hope that there would be consequences, he added. More than 50 children have died in the war; these are “lives of children that could have lived”.

The speech was broadcast on specially installed screens in the chamber shortly after 5pm on Tuesday. MPs and peers gave Zelensky a standing ovation before he spoke.

MPs followed a live translation

Zelensky: ‘Shelling didn’t break us’

through headphones, while members of the Lords watched from the public gallery. Ukranian ambassador to the UK Vadym Prystaiko was in the Commons to watch the address.

Following Zelensky’s speech, Boris Johnson said: “Never before has the Commons listened to such an address.” He added that Zelensky was “standing fi rm for democracy and freedom”.

Johnson also praised ordinary Ukrainians who were standing fi rm against a brutal assault.

He said the UK and allies were determined to “press on” to supply weapons, impose sanctions and add pressure on Russia. The UK would employ every method possible until Putin has failed in this venture and Ukraine is free “once more”.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer responded saying: “He’s reminded us that our freedom and our democracy are invaluable.

“He’s prompted the world into action, where too often we’ve let Putin have his way. He’s inspired the Ukrainian people to resist and frustrate the Russian war machine.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey suggested Zelensky deserved an honorary knighthood. Johnson appeared to nod in agreement.

The speech was broadcast an hour after the UK government confi rmed it is to phase out Russian oil and oil imports by the end of 2022. This transition period will give the market, businesses and supply chains more than enough time to replace Russian imports – which make up eight percent of UK demand, it said.

Nuclear deal ‘will boost Iran’

Boris Johnson has been warned that agreeing to a new nuclear deal with Iran risks “emboldening” the country.

Former communities secretary Robert Jenrick spoke out after negotiators in Vienna were close to agreeing a deal following the collapse of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Some in the UK and US fear this agreement will be weaker than its predecessor; the new deal is opposed by Israel.

Alan Mendoza, chief executive of right-wing think tank the Henry Jackson Society, said support for the deal would be “an extraordinary U-turn by the British government”, which “just a year ago pledged sanctions relief would be conditional on Iran ceasing to sponsor terrorism”.

Following lengthy negotiations, a new deal is expected to be announced under which US sanctions would be lifted in return for Tehran returning to full compliance with the 2015 nuclear nonproliferation deal.

On Saturday the deal – which is being discussed by French, German and British representatives, with America also present – came under attack from Russia, which demanded written guarantees that Ukraine-related sanctions, which have mounted this week, would not prevent it from continued trading with Tehran.

Negotiators for the Iranian regime have attempted to gain assurances that Israeli intelligence will not be used for inspectors to gain access to suspicious sites in the future.

ISRAEL-RUSSIA TALK NOT ENOUGH TO HALT WAR

JN ANALYSIS

It was a shock to learn Israel’s Orthodox prime minister had broken Shabbat rules last weekend, writes Michael Daventry. Naftali Bennett did so, his rabbis advised, because human life was at risk: he was fl ying to Moscow to talk peace with Vladimir Putin.

His trip marked the moment Israel broke from its strategy of staying out of the war triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Until the weekend, Israeli language on the confl ict had been more muted than other countries. And it has not followed the west in imposing sanctions of unprecedented scale on Russia. One factor is that a substantial part of Israel is Russian-speaking: as much as a fi fth. Over the past 75 years 1.3 million people born in Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet countries have immigrated. A whole political party, fi nance minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu, was originally founded for Russian speakers. And there’s Iran, Israel’s big adversary in the region, which has long operated from Syria — a Russian ally.

All we know about Bennett’s meeting is that it lasted three hours and he has made several phone calls to Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky since. He will be respected for his e ort but it is far from enough to stop the fi ghting.

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