Zelensky: "Evil is back" in Europe

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that "evil has returned" to Europe, comparing Russia's invasion of Ukraine to Nazi Germany's aggression against European countries, in a speech commemorating the Allied victory in World War II.

"Decades after World War II, it is dark and Ukraine is back in black and white," Zelensky said in a black-and-white video of destroyed apartment buildings.

"Evil has returned in a different outfit and under different slogans, but for the same goal," he added in the video translated into English, which showed archive images of the World War and black and white photos of the Russian invasion.

The Ukrainian president compared the bombing of European cities by Nazi Germany with the bombing of his country by Russia.

He accused Moscow of "blatantly reshaping Nazism" by using its "ideas, actions, words and symbols" and repeating its "atrocities" while giving justifications "aimed at giving this evil a sacred objective."

"This year we say in a different way 'We will not do it again!', We hear these words in a different way. They resonate in a painful and cruel way, without exclamation but with a question mark. You say 'We don't want this to happen again'? Then talk to Ukraine."

Ukraine, the former Soviet republic, was invaded by the Russian army on February 24, in an attack that Moscow called a "special operation" aimed among other things at "de-Nazification".

Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that "as in 1945, victory will be ours", drawing a number of comparisons between World War II and the conflict in Ukraine while offering congratulations on the May 8th anniversary.

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