“We have freedom, give us wings to protect it.” With these words, this Wednesday, in a speech before British parliamentarians during a surprise trip to the United Kingdom, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, asked the West for combat aircraft for his country, a request that he accompanied by giving him the helmet of one of its pilots to the Speaker of the Commons, Lindsay Hoyle. “Two years ago, I left Parliament thanking you for the delicious English tea. Today I will leave Parliament thanking you all, in advance, for the powerful English planes,” he said.
In the first visit to British territory since the Russian army invaded his country almost a year ago, the Ukrainian president exclaimed that “freedom will win, we know that Russia will lose” and thanked the United Kingdom for its support. Applause followed one another throughout the speech, which he delivered after he met with the prime minister this morning, Rishi Sunak, who received him at the London Stansted airport, and before he meets King Carlos III in the afternoon. “Today, every pilot in the (Ukrainian) air force is a king,” he declared.
The UK “is marching with us to the most important victory of our lives,” he said, adding that “after we win together, any aggressor will know what to expect if he attacks the international order.” “Any aggressor is going to lose,” she asserted, and this “victory will change the world,” a change that, she said, “the world has needed for a long time.”
