The Russian invasion is not just a battle against the independence of Ukraine but against the cardinal principles of democracy.
This was written by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella in a message sent to the President of the Anpi, Gianfranco Pagliarulo, on the occasion of the 17th National Congress, which is celebrated "in a dramatic moment": "The unjustifiable aggression against the Ukrainian people of which the Russian Federation has made itself responsible and has plunged the European continent back into a time of massacres, destruction, forced exodus that we firmly intended would no longer reproduce after the tragic events of the Second World War ".
"The target of the war - the words of the Head of State - is not only the claim to subdue an independent country such as Ukraine. The attack hits the foundations of democracy, regenerated by the fight against Nazi-fascism, by the affirmation of the values of Liberation fought by the European Resistance movements, strengthened by the Constitutions which have placed freedom and the inviolable rights of man at the foundations of our coexistence ".
"European democracy has been the guarantor of peace, an engine of dialogue, development and the affirmation of values of justice and social cohesion. It has been able to give the continent's unity - even with its limitations - plural and shared orders and today this unity is expresses alongside the attacked people, asking that the weapons be shut down immediately, that the invasion forces withdraw, that the right of the Ukrainian people to live in peace and freedom be affirmed. It is the values of the Resistance that, once again, we question. In Ukraine and throughout Europe ".
“Peace and freedom, the rights of individuals and communities - he concludes - are inseparable cornerstones and constitute goals that the citizens of the Continent today intend to regain in order to compose a new framework of security, cooperation, coexistence. The congress of the Anpi, an association that collects the legacy of those who fought for freedom, will certainly be, once again, an important moment of witness and reflection. Of active solidarity with those who are resisting, of the search for a peace on which to rebuild civilization and law. May the living and current principles of our Constitutional Charter act as a guide ".
