The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, addressed hundreds of students at Canadian universities, including the University of Montreal, Wednesday morning by videoconference and asked them not to get tired of war and don’t stop talking about it.
Updated yesterday at 7:56 p.m.
“By your actions, by your interventions on social media, by your exchanges with your friends, by your demonstrations for Ukraine, thank you for ensuring that no one forgets the war. Do not become war-weary. Do not forget us. That’s how you can help us,” said Zelensky when answering a question from a Ukrainian student at the University of Alberta about the best ways to help Ukraine.
Wearing a camouflage-style military jacket, straight and serious behind his desk, making a few jokes (he thanked the Alberta student for his traditional costume), Mr. Zelensky addressed his compatriots, namely the visiting Ukrainian students in Canada, asking them not to forget their homeland.
“Without you, young people who have gone to study abroad, the reconstruction process will be very slow. So please come back. Come back with the advanced knowledge you acquire and with the will to live and build an independent Ukraine. »
Message heard for Anastasiia Dombrovska and Anastasiia Soshenko, two 18-year-old Ukrainian students who recently arrived in Quebec and are enrolled in political science at the Université de Montréal.
“Yes, we want to return to our country,” says Anastasiia Soshenko, a resident of Kharkiv. All the knowledge that we accumulate here, we want to use it, apply it in Ukraine. We want to build a new free country when it comes out of war. »
“It is a great honor for us to participate in this meeting. It has great significance, says fellow student Anastasiia Dombrovska, from the Kirovograd region. Mr. Zelensky has become a hero in the world. »
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Ukrainian students recently enrolled at the Université de Montréal listened carefully to their president’s speech.
sad transparency
Punctuated by several relevant questions, the meeting was organized by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
Students from the universities of Alberta, Calgary, Prince Edward Island, Kingston (Queens), Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Waterloo, London (Western), Nova Scotia (Dalhousie) and Montreal participated.
By way of introduction, Mr. Zelensky recalled his time in Toronto in the summer of 2019, when his country was putting in place several measures aimed at improving democracy and the population was filled with hope.
Things have changed a lot in three years and no one expected that, he noted. “In the summer of 2019, we were building a country of transparent institutions, fair and honest rules, prosperous and free people. Today it is the walls of our buildings that are transparent, in the most literal sense, because they were destroyed by Russian missiles and bombs. »
A student from the University of Montreal, Vincent Perras, who has just completed his bachelor’s degree in history, asked the Ukrainian president a question. “How do you think international institutions like the UN Security Council could be reformed to prevent further wars and aggression? he asked.
“All these institutions are important, but they need to improve,” replied Mr. Zelensky. Things have changed a lot and everything is going faster today. In this sense, international institutions can no longer, as in the past, get bogged down in long discussions while people are dying. They must be very energetic in their interventions, to achieve results. They must be like 911. You feel bad, so they come to your rescue. »
Mr. Perras, who will begin a master’s degree in history next fall, was happy with the result. “It was a great experience,” he told The Press. In this kind of formal discussion, you don’t expect to have a very intense dissertation, but I found the answer given on the speed of response from institutions to be interesting. »
On the subject, precisely, of this world which has changed, the Ukrainian president said that social networks and the Internet could be great tools to “reduce the distances between our countries” and “to make known the truth”. “In our case, they were almost like weapons, because they allowed us to show the whole world what was happening in Ukraine. The information can sometimes be very impactful. »
But weapons, Ukraine still needs them and Mr Zelensky repeated this in another speech. “We need arms, humanitarian and financial aid, and we need countries to maintain permanent sanctions against Russia. »
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- June 22, 1941
- On June 22, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky recalled that the bombardment of Kyiv by German forces began 81 years ago. “Today, we are still fighting for the same reasons, freedom and our territory. »