Ukraine's parliament speaker asks French parliament for tanks and planes and to recognise Holodomor as genocide

On Tuesday, Ruslan Stefanchuk, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, delivered an address to the National Assembly of France, where he called on Paris to support the provision of military equipment to Ukraine; he also asked French legislators to recognise the Holodomor as a genocide of the Ukrainian people.

Source: Stefanchuk’s address, published on the website of Ukrainian parliament; European Pravda

The politician thanked "the people of France, its president, the government, all of you for all the help that has been provided to Ukraine since the Russian full-scale invasion", primarily for the military aid.

"Now we know well what Crotal, Caesar, LRU, AMX-10RC are. And we are ready to enrich our vocabulary with new words. Among the Leopards, Abrams, and Challengers, we want to see French Leclercs that will strengthen us on land. As well as Mirages with Rafales, which, together with other allied aircraft, will protect the Ukrainian skies," Stefanchuk emphasised.

"Give us aircrafts! Give us the wings of our victory! Wings, with which we will cover Ukraine and protect all of Europe!", Stefanchuk called.

Apart from that, the speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament appealed to the delegates of the French National Assembly with a request to contribute to the recognition of the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine as a genocide of the Ukrainian people.

"Millions of Ukrainians died in 1932-1933 as a result of the genocidal actions of the Stalinist regime, due to an artificially and deliberately organised famine. Presently, a signal from France about the recognition of the Holodomor would be significant, since the events of 1932-33 confirm the intention of then Stalinist, and now Putin's Russia to destroy Ukrainian identity," he believes.

In his speech, Stefanchuk also thanked France for supporting Ukraine on the way to EU membership and expressed hope for a positive decision following the results of the NATO summit in Lithuania in July 2023.

During the business trip, the speaker of the parliament is to meet with the president, the prime minister and the speakers of both houses of the French parliament and a number of French politicians. He is also scheduled to address the French Senate, the other chamber of the Parliament.

Background: Oleksii Reznikov, Minister of Defence of Ukraine, is also visiting France. Following the meeting with him, Sébastien Lecornu, Minister of the Armed Forces of France, said that France was ready to hand over 12 more Caesar howitzers to Ukraine, and would also help with the training of the Ukrainian military on the territory of Poland.

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