Volodymyr Zelenskyy – 2022 Speech to the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation

The speech made by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, on 7 December 2022.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

I greet you from Ukraine and thank you for supporting our fight for freedom!

I want you to know what this support means. What American aid means to our defense against Russian terror.

This is an opportunity for every Ukrainian to feel that freedom will reign on our land, and not the brutality of the occupier. This is an opportunity for every Ukrainian father and mother to be sure that child will choose his or her own path in life, and it will be a free life, not an endless fear of dictatorship. When we ask for support, it is always a request from people to people.

On February 24, Russia started a total war against us, and this is a war for survival. Hundreds of our cities and villages were simply burned to the ground by Russian strikes.

We have already managed to free from occupation one thousand eight hundred and eighty eight settlements. But almost as many Ukrainian towns and villages remain under occupation. And this means that now the fate of millions of people is being decided on the battlefield in Ukraine. Millions – who can be saved.

We have no right to leave even a single Ukrainian under the Russian occupation! Not in Russian filtration camps, where thousands have already disappeared. And not on Russian territory, where hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were forcibly deported… We can free them. This is our hope. This is what your support means. This is not about politics, this is about life.

I will repeat these words once again – this is not about politics, this is about life.

Isn’t that what real democracy is all about?

There are always moments when it is necessary to say: this is not about politics, this is about life. There are always times when you need to support – because support means much more than just giving or doing something.

Now is that very time – when support literally means saving, saving millions of people, millions of fathers and mothers, millions of children.

And I am grateful to you for being with us – for the fact that the United States of America really support Ukraine. I believe that thanks to your support in particular, we will be able to say one day that all Ukraine is finally free and safe from Russian terror.

Thank you for your attention!

Thank you for the ripple of hope that we raised together this year!

Слава Україні!