“People of Greece, good morning….Death or Freedom, as your revolutionaries said, is what we are saying today,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday as he addressed the Hellenic Parliament via video link.
Referring extensively to his country’s historic ties with Greece and to war-ravaged Mariupol, he asked for the creation of a new “Filiki Eteria” (Society of Friends) to save the ethnic Greek community in Ukraine also.
Zelensky gave his video address in the presence of President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Alexis Tsipras, the head of the opposition Movement for Change (KINAL) parliamentary group Michalis Katrinis and MeRA25 representative Giorgos Logiadis, while the parliamentary groups of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the right-wing Elliniki Lysi were absent.
Parliament President Konstantinos Tasoulas, addressing Zelensky during the special parliamentary session, noted that it was an “exceptional honor and with feelings of solidarity that we welcome you to…a historic session dedicated to the heroic people of Ukraine, who are struggling and defending against a barbaric invasion that for 43 days is becoming more and more inhuman.”
He noted that Greece has condemned the Russian invasion in the most emphatic way and referred to Greece’s assistance to Ukraine, as well as the unique historic bonds between the two countries and the ethnic Greeks of Mariupol.
