Spain listened this Tuesday, by videoconference, to the Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelenski in his first appearance in a European parliament after the Bucha massacrethe city on the outskirts of kyiv that was left devastated and strewn with abandoned corpses in the streets after the withdrawal of the Russian troops that had occupied it.
“We value the weapons that (Spain) is giving to Ukraine. We also ask you to support sanctions on Russia. Sanctions have to be tougher”, Zelenski said before more than 600 people gathered in front of the screens mounted in the hemicycle of the Congress of Deputies, in the Plaza de las Cortes in Madrid.
Before the Spanish Parliament, Zelensky appealed to Guernica, the emblematic anti-Franco Basque city that was bombed by German and Italian aviation: “We are in 2022 but it seems 1937”said the Ukrainian president to an audience that did not need more to understand the allusion to the parallelism of devastation that Guernica experienced during the Spanish Civil War and the bombs that are destroying Ukraine today.
Zelensky also asked Spanish companies to “stop doing business with Russia.”
Deputies, senators, the Ukrainian ambassador to Spain, Serhii Pohoreltsev, and other ambassadors of the European Union listened to his message, which, for security reasons, did not last more than thirty minutes.
the horrors
“Mothers in Ukraine they write on the backs of their children with a pen the name of their children and of some close people so that, in case they kill their parents, there is some chance that those children will be saved,” Zelensky said.
“Russia is not serious about peace,” he added.
“How can we allow Russian banks to make profits while they (the Russians) are torturing civilians?” he asked before confessing: “We don’t know how long this war can last.”
“Glory to Ukraine!”were the last words of President Zelenski before the Parliament of Spain.
“Yours is an example of dignity and resistance,” said President Pedro Sánchez, in turn, while Zelenski followed his words by videoconference.
“(Those committed by the invasion of Vladimir Putin) they are war crimes that they cannot go unpunished,” Sánchez added.
“Spain condemns with the greatest determination this ruthless war of Putin against Ukraine,” he insisted. An illegal, irrational and unjust war”.
Spain hardens
From the pulpit of the Congress of Deputies, the head of the Government of Spain made an “appeal to Putin so that you sit down seriously at the negotiation table and end the war.”
“We are facing a frontal attack on values,” Sánchez continued. It is an attack on reason itself, on our way of life.” “Putin is not going to achieve his goal,” he said, assuring that Spain will continue “supporting the toughest sanctions against Putin.”
Hours before the participation of the Ukrainian president in the Spanish Congress, the government of Pedro Sánchez announced that it will expel from its territory, at least 27 Russian diplomats and staff from the embassy of the Russian Federation in Spain.
This was announced on Tuesday by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares: “They represent a threat to the security interests of our country and also after the terrible actions carried out in Bucha and Mariupol in recent days.”
Albares did not confirm whether Spain suspects possible espionage by Russian diplomats but clarified that the decision does not include the Russian ambassadorYuri Korchagin, “to give dialogue a chance”.
According to the Spanish Foreign Minister, the measure is added to that already adopted by other European countries such as Italy, Germany, France, Sweden and Denmark, which announced the expulsion of Russian diplomats in recent hours for reasons of “national security”.
And although the Spanish government was the first among NATO allies to send fighter planes to the area as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine, President Zelensky did not consider it a priority when he began to give messages by videoconference adapting his speech to the historical events that marked the course of each country.
Before participating in the Spanish Parliament, Volodimir Zelenski spoke, for the first time, in the Security Council of the United Nations. There he denounced that Ukraine is living “the greatest war crimes since World War II.”
He also denounced the mass graves and the bodies of handcuffed civilians that were found this weekend in the city of Bucha and called for changes so that Russia cannot veto resolutions on its own war.
Zelenski he has already been a speaker in nearly twenty parliaments around the world. On Sunday night, she also did it during the Grammy awards ceremony.
“The music will break through anyway,” said the Ukrainian president from one of the screens. Tell the truth about the war on your social networks, on television. Support us in any way you can. Whatever. But not with silence”, was his message during the 64th edition of the most important music awards that were given in Las Vegas.