Carin Lobbezoo retweetledi
“On behalf of all the ordinary men, women and children who were thrust overnight into a new reality they did not choose.
On behalf of the children who now go to school in an air-raid shelter.
On behalf of the women who keep their families afloat and their country running by working in factories.
On behalf of the men who’ve had to swap a suit-and-tie for combat fatigues, and are fighting to defend their territory. Metre by metre.
Who are doing so because they know and feel that every square centimetre is a piece not just of Ukraine’s soil, but of its dignity too. That is what they are defending.
President Zelenskyy, Volodymyr: this award is for your country. For you as president. And for all the Ukrainian people.”
Click here government.nl/documents/spee… to read my speech at the Four Freedoms Awards ceremony.
Today in Middelburg it was my privilege to join Elizabeth Roosevelt Johnston (the great-granddaughter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt) in presenting the International Four Freedoms Award to President @ZelenskyyUa of Ukraine.
He accepted the award on behalf of the Ukrainian people as a ‘recognition of the courageous fight for our freedom and democracy under exceptionally difficult circumstances’.
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