Evil has returned: Zelenskyy on WW2 anniversary

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that evil had returned to Ukraine but that Kyiv would prevail in an emotional address as Europe marks the surrender of Nazi Germany in World War II.

Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine ended 77 years of peace, he said on Ukraine's Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation. Ukraine fought alongside Russia as part of the Soviet Union in World War II.

His video address, filmed in front of charred Ukrainian apartment blocks with footage of Russian missile strikes, comes a day before Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin marks the Soviet victory with a vast military parade.


"Darkness has returned to Ukraine decades after World War Two... The evil has returned," Zelenskyy said. "In a different form, under different slogans, but for the same purpose."

"No evil can escape responsibility, it cannot hide in a bunker," he said. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler spent the last days of his life in a bunker in Berlin where he committed suicide in the final days of the war.

Zelenskyy did not name Putin throughout his video address, but used vivid language to express his horror at the devastation.

"A bloody re-enactment of Nazism has been staged. A fanatical imitation of this regime. Its ideas, actions, words and symbols," he said.