00:00There will be no military hardware on show in Russia's Victory Day Parade next month for the
00:05first time in almost 20 years, as Moscow claims it is under threat from Ukraine. In a phone call
00:12with US President Donald Trump yesterday, President Putin also said he would unilaterally
00:17declare a ceasefire in his war against Ukraine for the duration of Victory Day celebrations.
00:23We can cross over now to the European Parliament in Strasbourg and to our correspondent
00:27Vincenzo Genovese, who is there for us this week. And Vincenzo, on this issue of Russia,
00:32it also featured prominently in a debate on EU-Russia ties in the hemicycle last night.
00:41Yes, Mared, indeed. Good morning. Good morning from Strasbourg. It was quite a heated debate
00:46yesterday evening as the topic is highly controversial among MEPs and also full discussion
00:51across Europe. Currently, we know Russian teams are excluded from sports competitions and Russia
00:56remains banned from cultural events such as the Eurovision Song Contest, but not from, for example,
01:02Venice Biennale, the world's most renowned contemporary art exhibition. So the question
01:07is, should you talk to Russia through diplomacy or at least through sports and arts or not? Let's put
01:15it to Vincenzo Genovese, who is an MEP from the Greens Hefa group and chairs the European Parliament
01:21Russian delegation. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. Good morning.
01:25Should we talk to Russia or not? I think we have to be very clear that Russia uses all connections
01:32or
01:33conciliation from outside as a way to show that they would have international legitimacy for their war
01:39crimes in Ukraine and ongoing slaughter of Ukrainians. So Russia has committed thousands of war crimes,
01:48torture of prisoners, rape of Ukrainian women, and these are kind of like systematic. So we have to
01:58remember that as long as the war continues and Putin does not take responsibility for the war crimes and
02:03Russia does not stop invading Ukraine. There is no, nothing we can talk about with Russia and we
02:09should not give them any legitimacy through sports or culture. The war continues, as you said, but Putin,
02:15Vladimir Putin announced a ceasefire for the victory day. Do you believe him? Is it a serious offer?
02:21No, it's not. I mean, Putin also feels, Russia feels weaker now than they did a year ago.
02:27Ukraine has done a lot of drone attacks inside of Russia, so they start to feel threatened by those attacks.
02:33So this is also for them to try to create a day where they can show their strength, but then
02:40they want
02:41Ukrainians not to intervene.
02:43Some Europeans will go there, like Slovak Prime Minister Fico. Is it the right choice?
02:48I think it's a totally wrong choice. We don't want to show any support for the current Russian regime
02:54in their kind of like also reimagining the past. Russia uses the victory day as a way of
03:01strengthening a very nationalistic future for Russia, where human rights are not supported.
03:08And meantime, there is also a standoff between Ukraine and Israel for what Kiev says is stolen grains from
03:13occupied territories. What you can do on that. I think you have to be very clear that that all the
03:19support that we have for Ukraine and all the conditions and sanctions on Russia and action
03:24against Russians using Ukrainian resources elsewhere have to apply to all countries. So we have to be
03:29strict on Israel as well. And Israel has to pay if they do wrong on here. Very clear. Thank you
03:36very
03:36much. It's last day of plenary session in Strasbourg, and we will follow it as usual on Euronews.
03:44Vincenzo there in Strasbourg, thank you so much for that.
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