The speaker, a writer advocating for women's rights, asserts that the current war in Ukraine, initiated by Russia, is not merely a regional conflict but a global struggle against a resurgent totalitarianism, with women and children being deliberately targeted as a "living shield."
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i cannot be more appreciative
for this invitation
and for this unique opportunity to speak
here on women's rights day
at probably the darkest hour in europe
for most of my literary career i've been
speaking for women and in the name of women
women
in my writings i've been aimed to give
voice to the experiences of women
subjected to violence
to those living and dead whose feelings
ideas or accomplishments were ignored
devalued or simply forgotten
i've spoken for women's rights to be
free from discrimination and gender
inequality for their right to live in
accordance with their own wishes and preferences
preferences
this however is
is
the first time
that i have to stand up
for a woman's right
right
ukrainians are a strong nation
this appears to have surprised many in
the west
yet were it not so we would not have
survived stalin's genocide the horrific
man-made famine of 1933
notably still unrecognized by most of
the countries represented here
and we are a nation of strong women too
along with the rest of the world
i cannot but admire with tears in my eyes
eyes
my fellow country women now fighting
right alongside our men
they've joined the army and the civil
territorial defense forces
they manage the distribution of supplies
across our besieged cities
some of which like mariopol stand on the
verge of a humanitarian catastrophe now
they give birth in bomb shelters
supported and supervised by doctors online
online
ukrainian doctors meanwhile have created
facebook pages offering instructions on
how women over 37 weeks pregnant might
safely deliver children in bomb shelters
an image
that strikes me as almost biblical as
sounds of mary's hide with their
newborns evading king carrot in
basements subway stations and other stables
stables yes
yes
we are strong
and grateful
for your support
and your admiration
the problem is putin's bombs
will not be stopped
by the strengths of our spirit
and babies born in bomb shelters die of
sepsis caused with the dust raining down
on them during attacks
since february 24th
when russia launched its invasion
conceived as the blitzkrieg only to be
foiled by the ferocious determination of
our military and mobilized civilians
one of history's unshakable rules has
been reconfirmed
in any hot war
war
women make
the most vulnerable targets
if only because it's women who remain to
take care of those in need
of children and the elderly
and it is precisely this
living shield
which vladimir putin
now uses to break ukraine's heroic resistance
resistance
having failed to take cave
putin began
shelling residential areas
including elementary schools nurseries
let me take the liberty of stressing this
this every
every
moment of hesitation
on the side of western policy makers
and nato decision makers
about whether to provide ukraine with
anti-aircraft weapons
not to speak of the no-fly zone
every coffee break you are taking during
your discussions about how to interfere
without provoking putin to go further costs
costs
someone's life
most likely a civilians
after all putin said it quite openly
back on april 17 2014
in the first act
act
which he called special military
operation russian spring
and which then resulted in the
annexation of crimea and in creating two
russian-controlled military zones in
donbass but was initially meant to
accomplish much more
that day
eight years ago he openly announced
that russian troops in donbass
would be standing against ukrainian army behind
behind
ukrainian women and children
i quote literally not in front of them
but behind
behind daring ukrainian army
to shoot
a living shield a typical terrorist tactic
he was then so confident
of his superiority
so sure that no one would dare stop him
that he did not even bother to lie out
of contempt to his audience
isn't it amazing ladies and gentlemen
that no one
outside of ukraine maybe took them his
words seriously
in may 2014 after russian soldiers in
donbass had already begun slicing open
people's bellies and shooting at
teenagers for carrying yellow and blue flags
flags
i was speaking in berlin at the european
writers forum
and when in my speech i compared putin
into hitler and stalin the moderator was
so shocked that my microphone was turned
off and in the publication the
eight years passed
so many human lives could have been saved
saved
if only the eu and the us
would have woken up
eight years ago to the fact that they
knew hitler
was ready to pick up where the previous
one had left off [Applause]
[Applause]
if the current package of sanctions had
sound similar to the litanies
that writers and intellectuals who survived
survived
world war ii
were proposing after the war ended
yet for me it is also a sign that we
and by we i mean all western civilization
civilization
to which ukraine with its millennium
long history also belongs
that we have not learned too much from history
history
putin deliberately imitates hitler he
even uses hitler's very language
referring to the final solution of the
ukrainian question
and barely disguising quotations from
hitler's speech at reichstag on
i will not war against women and children
children
i have ordered my air force to restrict
itself to attacks on military objectives
that's from 1939
yes ladies and gentlemen it is
the announcement of war
vladimir putin has done it in his tricky
tricky
perverted kgb language
but i am here to tell you as a writer
who does know something about language
and how easily its power can be misused
that it is already a world war
not a
conflict in ukraine as it is still
described in many western media
and that you better trust
mr putin when he pronounces his ambitions
ambitions
he has already claimed back the former
soviet bloc which is what he really
means by demanding that nato pull back
from eastern europe and he won't stop unless
unless
he is stopped by an international front
of all those nations who still believe
that freedom
and human solidarity
are worth more
than gas and oil [Applause]
[Applause]
ladies and gentlemen
you have all seen videos
of how ukrainian civilians men and women
stop russian tanks with bare hands and
loud curses
here lies the secret of our heroism
we are not
afraid of russia
of all the nations in europe we know
that what putin has for decades been
selling to the west
as the true story
his nuclear blackmailing included is
is
nothing but a pack of lies
we know this because we do have our share
share
in the past
300 years of russian imperial greatness
and by no means a minor one
that is why of all the nations that is
ukraine that has found herself at the
forefront of this war
without us
there can be no russian empire no
no
evil empire ladies and gentlemen that
first
there was austria then czechoslovakia
then poland then europe
first it was georgia then belarus then ukraine
ukraine afterwards
afterwards europe
europe
while i was writing this
my niece
and her two children
one eight years old the other eight
months old
were driving from cave to western ukraine
ukraine
at a speed
200 kilometers in 10 hours
women of ukraine are fleeing and mass
from the russian bombs flattening their homes
homes
while ukrainian men stay to fight as
long as it's needed
to free europe from the specter of the
new totalitarianism
they all know their job
both men and women
please don't
be afraid
to protect the sky above them
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