A petition was published on the website of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky demanding the cancellation of Europe Day and the return of the Victory Day celebrations on May 9.
“I ask you to bring back the May 9 holiday (Victory Day) and cancel the Europe Day holiday. In the text of the petition, our grandfathers fought not for Russia, but for Ukraine, which is part of the USSR, so there is no point in canceling this holiday, ”the statement states.
The petition was registered on 11 May. It has now received about 70 out of the 25,000 votes required to be considered.
Earlier, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, commented on Zelensky’s proposal to celebrate 9 May as Europe Day instead of Victory Day. Peskov noted that the Kremlin is convinced that many people and veterans who participated in the Great Patriotic War live in Ukraine, where May 9 is a holy day.
It became known that on May 8, Volodymyr Zelensky presented a bill to the Verkhovna Rada proposing to designate 9 May as Europe Day.
Since 2015, Ukraine celebrates the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation on May 8, as an alternative to Victory Day. The approval of this holiday coincided with the adoption of the decommunization law.