You're reading: Poroshenko chastises Putin on 70th anniversary of Victory Day; Yatsenyuk gives video message

President Petro Poroshenko rebuffed Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin by commemorating the allied victory over Nazi Germany on May 8, instead of May 9, while chastising the Kremlin dictator for trying to “monopolize” the credit for victory to Russia.

Speaking in parliament on May 8, Poroshenko recalled how Putin said the Soviet Union would have defeated Germany without Ukraine.

Emphasizing that no one should underestimate Ukraine’s contribution in
World War II, he said: “Nobody has the right to monopolize the victory and use
it in their imperial ambitions.”

Ukraine paid a heavy price for the peace, Poroshenko said, because it
was in the epicenter of the battlefield together with Belarus and part of
Russia. “Ukraine has lost from 8 to 10 million people in war, by various
estimates,” he says.

Putin didn’t send Victory Day congratulatory notes to Ukraine and
Georgia, UNIAN news agency reporting, citing the Kremlin’s press service.

Poroshenko said he decided to mark May 8 as the Day of Remembrance and
Reconciliation using the poppy flower symbol because “this victory is not forgotten
for the country.”

“Ukrainians were the first ones to feel the effects of two totalitarian
regimes – Nazi and the Communist,” Poroshenko said. He also applauded the adoption
of a package of decommunization laws that condemn “totalitarian practices” and
which he said were passed on time.

He hasn’t signed the laws, however.

In attendance during the special session were United Nations Secretary-General
Ban
Ki-moon, former presidents Viktor Yushchenko, Leonid Kuchma and Leonid
Kravchuk, as well as lawmakers.

Red Army, Ukrainian Insurgent Army and current war veterans fighting against
combined Russian-separatists forces in Donbas were also present.

Ivan Zaluzhniy, a 97-year-old World War II veteran from Zaporizhya, whose
grandson died fighting Russian-separatist forces in Donbas last year, was also
among of them.

His story told plainly on video became popular because it was recorded
and produced by Ukrainian director Oles Sanin, the winner of the 2004
Oleksander Dovzhenko Ukrainian State Award for the movie “Mamai” (2003).

In the video, Zaluzhniy says that he would like to celebrate Victory Day
with his grandson, Ivan Gutnyk-Zaluzhniy, a National Guard battalion commander.
However, his, 23-year-old grandson was killed while trying to save the lives of
fellow soldiers in the city of Amvrosiivka in Donetsk Oblast in August 2014.

“You couldn’t imagine in your nightmares that after 70 years of peace war
would start in Ukraine again,” Poroshenko said. “Our country has been
treasuring peace that lasted over 70 years. Now Ukraine is under fire again.
But we’ll finally be released from the Russian-Soviet propaganda intoxication.”

WWII was the result of “fatal miscalculations of European leaders” who
underestimated the risks of Adolf Hitler’s policy, he added.

“It could have been prevented… if (the European leaders) were not
burying their heads in the sand and didn’t cherish illusions,” Poroshenko said.

The president also noted that almost 7,000 civilians have died, and 1,675 Ukrainian soldiers were killed since Russia’s
war against Ukraine began in mid-April 2014. At least 1,000 people have gone missing
as a result, according to Poroshenko.

Meanwhile, two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 26 were wounded in Donbas
in the past 24 hours, according to Andriy Lysenko, military spokesman.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk gave a Victory Day message subtitled in English.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, in a nearly four-minute message, said that “we have defended our land back in those times, and we are defending our land again today. We have prevailed then, and we will be victorious again today! Glory to Ukraine! Glory to our heroes!”

Kyiv Post staff writer
Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected].