Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle who welcomed Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska to address Parliament
(Picture: PA Wire)The Holocaust is “happening again” in Ukraine with Vladimir Putin’s war, Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said on Tuesday.
He told of the “horrors” being committed by the Russian president’s troops including executions, rapes, indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas and a wave of missile attacks to destroy key infrastructure including electricity power stations to plunge Ukrainian communities into darkness and a dearth of heating as winter approaches.
Ahead of Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska addressing Parliament in Britain on Tuesday, Sir Lindsay said: “It’s easy for those of us who live in peace to not want to think about what you are going through.
“Where there is no end in sight, people suffer news fatigue.
“But just as we must not forget the Holocaust, we cannot deny that it’s happening again.
“We must not sleepwalk into thinking that this is a situation is going on in a far away land, that it does not affect us.”
Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices during World War Two.
An estimated 40,000 Ukrainian civilians are believed to have been killed so far in Putin’s nine-month war which is thought to also have left around 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers dead or wounded, with a similar casualty figure for the Russian military.
Addressing Ms Zelenska, Speaker Sir Lindsay added: “Your brave visit with us today must shock us awake again.
“You must make us listen when you say that Ukraine women are being raped by Russian soldiers, and that the people’s lives are being destroyed, children are being murdered, homes are being destroyed.
“You must make us listen afterall we are you and you are us.”
He continued: “We cannot imagine what is happening to you...how we would feel if this happened to us.
“You need to keep going and we need to keep supporting you because if Putin wins other nations will be in his sights.
“It’s our duty to keep the spotlight on you, to keep shaking the world awake to the horrors Russia is committing.”
Speaking personally to the First Lady, Sir Lindsay added: “We know the sacrifices that you have made to spread the message of peace and to keep your family safe.
“So for you to join us today takes a level of bravery which is a hallmark of your president, of your Parliament and the Ukraine people.”
He stressed that the UK was at the forefront of supplying military, economic and political support to Kyiv, with thousands of Ukrainian families also offered temporary homes in Britain.
