Dignified and defiant, Ukraine President Zelensky has delivered a ‘we will never surrender’ message to the UK.
In a video link to a Commons packed to the rafters with MPs and Lords, the Ukrainian President managed to summon the spirit of Winston Churchill across the breadth of a continent.
The symbol of Ukraine found the same powerful oratory Britain’s wartime leader used from the despatch box in the lonely summer of 1940 when the country stood alone against Nazi-occupied Europe.
Westminster likes to bathe in its own history, but there are not many days which are truly historic.
Zelensky’s speech was a moment which bonded this crop of MPs into the fight which will define Europe for a generation.
Talking from the frontline of the war against Russia, the actor President, half Che Geuvara in his khaki t-shirt and stubble, all Churchill in his inspiring speech, quoted Shakespeare back at Britain.
The Ukrainian people, he reminded MPs, are in a fight for their very existence.
“To be or not to be?” said the President. “For 13 days this question could have been asked but now I can give you a definitive answer. It’s definitely yes, to be.”
For a man who has not slept in two weeks of missile attacks, this President with a price on his head looked surefooted as he listed, day by day, the Russian onslaught and the resistance.
No one could miss the echo of Winston Churchill when Zelensky vowed that Ukrainians would fight on, “in the forests, in the fields, on the shores and the streets” against their aggressor.
No one doubts it and he closed his address to a standing ovation from across the House and galleries.
The MPs applauded long and hard and maybe thought about where the events Zelensky and the people of Ukraine are living through will lead their own nation.
A man fighting for his life and his country, Zelensky did not stay for an encore. He saluted with a clenched fist and went back to war.
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