Dear Mr President Fontana,

Dear Prime Minister Meloni,

Ladies and gentlemen speakers and presidents of parliaments,

It is a great honour for me to participate today in the 22nd Meeting of the Group of Seven Heads of Parliaments.

I would like to thank our esteemed colleague and my dear friend Lorenzo for inviting me to his native Verona, the city of architecture and music, the city of love and fidelity, the city of Romeo and Juliet.

I am grateful to all of you, dear fellow speakers, for your decision to allow Ukraine to participate in the world's most influential parliamentary forum for the third time in a row.

At your distinguished gathering, I am proud to represent an unbreakable country, the heroic Ukrainian people, our victorious Armed Forces, security and defence forces, who defend our sovereignty and independence, the principles of international law and universally recognised freedoms every day against unprovoked and brutal aggression.

So let me express my deep gratitude to all of you, and through you to your peoples, presidents, parliaments and governments, for all the help and support you have provided to Ukraine.

I thank you for your deep understanding of the situation, for your leadership, for every law, resolution or decree adopted by your parliaments and governments, for all the military, technical and financial support, and for your invaluable humanitarian care.

I would also like to mention with gratitude your recent decision to provide Ukraine with $50 billion in financial assistance using frozen russian assets.

We will never forget and will always be grateful for helping us to withstand, to endure and to win.

Dear colleagues,

As I was preparing this speech, the enemy ruthlessly killed fifty-four people with two Iskanders and seriously wounded three hundred in Poltava.

While I was on my way to you, russia launched a massive cruise missile attack on the UNESCO-protected city centre of Lviv – our Ukrainian Verona.

 Seven people lost their lives, including three children.

And almost forty more were injured.

I still have a photo of a bloody and confused man who lost his wife and three daughters in an instant: Yaryna was 21 years old, Daryna was 18, and the youngest, Emilia, was 7.

Though my heart is breaking, I am here to tell you that it is time to stop studying the bloody geography of Ukraine's daily losses – it is time to make russia study the geography of our righteous retribution, our just revenge and our rightful punishment for them!

Better yet, the history of its imminent and inevitable collapse, which will be the ignominious end of its imperial and man-hating existence.

For more than two and a half years, Ukraine has been fighting a brutal enemy that is incomparably larger than it, and shows no signs of abandoning its aggression.

While russia attacks Ukraine daily with its own and North Korea's ballistic missiles, guided bombs, and Iranian kamikaze drones, bringing death and destruction, heavy fighting is taking place along the entire frontline.

Our soldiers are standing to the death for their land, for their people, for our freedom!

The aggressor is on a rampage, throwing more and more forces and equipment into the war, deliberately targeting critical infrastructure, especially energy infrastructure.

The fourth winter of the war will be very difficult...

It may be hard for you to imagine, but not far away, in Eastern Europe, people live without heat, water or electricity for hours or even days.

russia has seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

russia destroys dams.

It deliberately poisons rivers.

Tortures and kills prisoners of war.

Abducts our children.

Intimidates the international community.

Let's stop having illusions about the behaviour of a beast that will not be stopped by borders, international law, morality or humanity.

It does not care about anything that we care about!

I would like to use the high and authoritative tribune of the Verona Summit to outline Ukraine's urgent needs to fight the aggressor.

We continue to desperately need significant, uninterrupted and timely military and technical assistance, macro-financial support and assistance in the energy sector.

Air defence systems are, of course, a priority.

We need to finally close the skies over Ukraine and protect our citizens.

We need tactical missile and anti-aircraft systems, additional artillery systems, as well as ammunition for them.

We expect additional decisions on the supply of F-16 and other fighter aircraft.

We also expect to accelerate the pace of training for our pilots.

But one of the most important issues today is your consent to use the weapons provided to us to hit military targets in russia that pose a threat to Ukrainian citizens.

I ask you to give permission to Ukraine's neighbouring EU and NATO countries to shoot down enemy missiles that reach the western borders of our country.

After all, the beast is not only testing us – it is also testing you, dear friends.

Do you know what it feeds on?

It feeds on uncertainty, procrastination and fear.

Let's talk about sanctions.

I am a strong supporter of 100% sanctions against russia.

Without any exceptions or waivers.

Without any tolerance or euphemisms.

Without any loopholes or evasions.

russia will be defeated only when it is in total international isolation.

russia, its top political and military leadership, as well as individual perpetrators, must be punished fairly for all crimes committed in Ukraine.

It may sound paradoxical, but russia, which openly flouts the norms of international law, must be punished under the same international law.

For this purpose, a Special International Tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine should be established.

I would like to inform you that on 21 August, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

It is regrettable that the provisions of the Rome Statute were not implemented by the ICC member state of Mongolia just a few days ago.

This is a serious challenge to international justice and an equally serious signal to the entire international coalition that supports Ukraine. And to those who do not support us.

Along with the issue of fair punishment, we raise the issue of compensation.

The cheque for the war must be paid by putin and his henchmen.

They will surely face all the courts of earth and heaven.

At the same time, in defending its right to exist, Ukraine is interested in peace like no other.

It is Ukraine that pays the terrible price of this right every day.

I thank the leaders of your countries and the President of the European Parliament, Mrs Roberta Metsola, who is present in Verona today for her participation in the June Peace Summit, and ask you to continue to promote the implementation of the President Volodymyr Zelenskyi's Peace Formula as a universally recognised and universal algorithm for ensuring peace in Ukraine and beyond.

Ladies and gentlemen Speakers,

I would like to ask you to pay close attention to the Appeal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine addressed to your parliaments and governments, which we adopted on 3 September, just a few hours before I left Kyiv.

This appeal consolidates all the steps that are already being taken and must be taken for our common victory.

Let's make our march even more confident and purposeful, together.

Just as Ukraine is fighting for its present and future with confidence and purpose.

The way it is severing its ties with the enslaving soviet past.

The way it demonstrates its commitment to reform and systemic transformation, its intolerance to corruption, and its readiness to become a member of the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance.

Dear friends,

On your desks you see a copy of William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet translated into Ukrainian.

Do not rush to put this book on a distant shelf because you do not know the Ukrainian language, because this book is special.

It was published last year in unbreakable Kharkiv, which is subjected to daily missile and bomb attacks by the enemy.

This book was not only born, but also survived in Kharkiv...

It is the creation of heroic people who, being devoted to their professional duty, publish books under the threat of death.

This means that Ukraine is alive. It is fighting!

It is sowing and harvesting bread, clearing the fields of mines.

It takes children to school, building concrete shelters for them.

It wins medals at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, while rebuilding sports infrastructure.

It publishes books like this one.

Gives eternal life to Romeo and Juliet!

I ask you:

Let Ukraine withstand.

Give us faith in our common future.

Give us a chance to win!

Thank you for your attention!