Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will publish an anthology book featuring his wartime speeches from the past year, to be released in early December, the Penguin Random House subsidiary Crown announced on Monday.
The book, titled A Message from Ukraine, will contain 16 speeches delivered since Zelensky became president in 2019, most of them likely to be from the past year. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, half a decade before Zelensky took over the nation’s top office, but the West reacted tepidly to Moscow’s colonization of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula at the time, leading to Russian leader Vladimir Putin announcing a full-scale national invasion of Ukraine in February. Since the escalation in February, Putin has announced the “annexation” of four more regions of Ukraine: Kherson, which connects Russia to Crimea; Zaporizhzhia; and the two eastern Donbas regions, Luhansk and Donetsk.
Zelensky has dedicated much of his time as a wartime president to delivering speeches to international audiences, including a long list of national legislatures such as the U.S. Congress and international events. A comedian prior to becoming president, Zelensky has also capitalized on invitations to entertainment venues, most prominently the Grammy Awards in April.
“Since my inauguration in May 2019, I have delivered about 1,000 different addresses around the world. I have selected the 16 speeches in this book because they will help you understand Ukrainians: our aspirations, our principles, and our values,” Zelensky said in a statement announcing the anthology book, according to Publisher’s Weekly. “Above all, it will help you hear our message to the world: that we are a free and independent people, and that we will not stop resisting until the last Russian troop has left our territory.”
Crown confirmed the upcoming book, scheduled to be published in Western Europe on December 6, prior to the beginning of the Frankfurt Book Fair, one of the industry’s most prestigious events. The Book Fair, taking place in person for the first time since the Chinese coronavirus pandemic began, banned Russian state organizations that had, in the past, participated. Unlike other cultural events such as the Wimbledon tennis tournament, which banned all ethnic Russians and Belarusians from playing, the Frankfurt Book Fair is featuring Russian dissident voices in contrast to the prior promotion of state-associated actors.
“Supporting Ukraine is not a trend, a meme or a viral challenge,” Zelensky emphasized in his statement. “It is not a force to rapidly spread across the planet and then just as rapidly disappear. If you want to understand who we are, where we are from, what we want and where we are going, you need to learn more about who we are. This book will help you do just that.”
The publisher announced that proceeds from the book would fund United24, a Ukrainian government program created by Zelensky to collect international donations in the aftermath of the escalation of the eight-year-old invasion this year. United24 allows donors to help Ukraine fund both humanitarian and military efforts – providing even a program to allow supporters to “dronate” an armed drone for use in fighting Russia.
Ukraine has received $17.5 billion in American military funding between February and last week, most recently in the form of a $725 million aid packet.
Zelensky has dedicated most of his speeches to affirming that Ukraine will not negotiate with Russia on the sovereignty of its territory and to asking the world to donate weapons or money. During the United Nations General Assembly last month, Zelensky laid out a global plan he considered necessary to ending the war in his country, one that began with “punishment” for Russia.
“Blocking the trade and relations with the aggressor is a part of the peace formula. All this is a punishment. So long as the aggressor is a party to decision-making in the international organizations, he must be isolated from them,” Zelensky advised, “Reject the right to vote. Deprive delegation rights. Remove the right of veto – if it is a Member of the UN Security Council.”
Zelensky also rejected talks with Putin on that occasion, recalling, “we held 88 rounds of talks in various formats to prevent this war, just from the beginning of my presidency until February 24 this year.”
Zelensky’s efforts to convince the world to support the war in Ukraine have been met warmly in western Europe and by American and Canadian politicians, though the politician, having a reputation prior to the war for speaking loosely, has struggled in other regions of the world. His speech to the Israeli Knesset notoriously prompted widespread outrage after he compared the situation in his country to the Holocaust, and his attempts to convince Latin American countries to care more about eastern Europe have mostly failed.
The Ukrainian government has also had to clarify some of Zelensky’s most incendiary statements, including his demand last week that NATO engage in “preemptive strikes” against Russia, a move that would almost certainly result in a world war.
“The president spoke about the period before February 24. At that time, it was necessary to apply preventive measures to prevent Russia from starting a war,” Zelensky’s press secretary Serhii Nykyforov claimed.
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