Yesterday should have been a historic day for Greece’s Parliament.
One would have expected that the MPs that viewed the videotaped message of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would have been discussing the just struggle of a people for its national existence.
Yet, everyone – politicians of all stripes and the public – is talking about the Azov Brigade fighters that Zelensky decided to include on the videotape, in order to deliver their own message.
As all segments of the political spectrum agreed, the decision of the Ukrainian president was wrong.
Ukrainian diplomats in Athens should have briefed their leader about the sensitivities of his Greek audience.
The mistake of including in the video these fighters, who said they were ethnic Greeks, offered an opportunity to those who have fallen victim to Russian propaganda, and to those who refuse to take sides, to dispute the propriety of Greece’s decision to join ranks with all countries of the free world, and from the very first moment to stand by the Ukrainian people as they confront their terrible trials and suffering.
Ukraine is waging a battle for democracy, against authoritarianism and the mentality that gave birth to Nazism.
Let this be the message that we hold on to from Zelensky’s address to Parliament yesterday.
