Zelensky charged in Canadian Parliament: ‘We want to live!’

The Ukrainian president asked Canadian lawmakers to imagine how they would personally react to an invasion of the country’s own cities in a speech to the Canadian parliament on Tuesday: “You can only imagine that at 4:00 am, “Do you start hearing bomb blasts, powerful explosions? Can you imagine your children listening to all these loud explosions? Ottawa airport bombing? Dozens of other cities in your wonderful country – can you imagine it?” he said. Volodymyr Zelensky in a telephony in the Canadian Parliament, where the deputies adored him.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received a lengthy standing ovation after his address to Canada’s parliament. See the moment parliament chanted in support of Ukraine: pic.twitter.com/uR8Dkv1AYr

– CNN (@CNN) March 15, 2022

In addition, he asked them to imagine the attacks in Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine in terms of a personal city: “Imagine someone besieging Vancouver. Can you imagine that for a second? All these people who have stayed in such a city. This is exactly it. “The situation in the city of Mariupol is suffering at the moment,” he said. “And they are left without heat or electricity or without means of communication, almost without food, without water.”

He continued: “Can you imagine the famous CN Tower in Toronto being bombed? Of course I do not wish it on anyone, but this is our reality in which we live.”

Call for airspace closure

The Ukrainian president also reiterated his call on Canada to close its airspace over Ukraine, and called on its global allies to step up their efforts to impose sanctions.

“I know you support Ukraine. We were friends with you … but I would also like you to understand and feel what we feel every day. We want to live and we want to be winners. We want to prevail for the sake of life.” Zelensky said in a video speech to the Canadian parliament.

“Can you imagine calling your friends, your friendly nation, and asking, ‘Please close the skies, close the airspace, stop the bombing.’ How many more rockets must fall on our cities before that can happen? “… to express their deep concern about the situation. When we spoke to our partners, they said, ‘Please, be patient, be patient a little longer,'” he said.

Zelensky also said he had not heard a clear answer about joining NATO: “It is very close, but it has also allowed us to see who our real friends are in the last 20 days and also in the last eight years,” he said.

“You offered your help, your help, with our first request, you provide us with military assistance, humanitarian aid, you imposed severe sanctions, severe sanctions. At the same time, we see that unfortunately they did not bring an end to the war,” he added.

Zelensky said “you all need to do more to stop Russia, to protect Ukraine and in doing so, to protect Europe from the Russian threat.”