“Nobody wants to die, everybody wants to live, but the Russians want to rebuild a Russian empire and we don’t want to live in a Russian empire. The Russians try to put us on our knees, but we’re fighting right now for freedom and for the future of our children and our country.”

—  Vitali Klitschko

"Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko says he’s ready to give his life for Ukraine" https://nypost.com/2022/03/18/vitali-klitschko-says-hes-ready-to-give-his-life-for-ukraine/, New York Post, 18 March 2022

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 18, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Nobody wants to die, everybody wants to live, but the Russians want to rebuild a Russian empire and we don’t want to li…" by Vitali Klitschko?
Vitali Klitschko photo
Vitali Klitschko18
Ukrainian boxer and politician 1971

Related quotes

George F. Kennan photo

“The best thing we can do if we want the Russians to let us be Americans is to let the Russians be Russian.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

Source: As quoted in US-Soviet Relations : The First 50 Years WNET TV {17 April 1984)

Tom Clancy photo

“The Soviet Union is dead and gone and replaced by the Russian Federation, which is a country we can be friends with now, thank God — and we want the Russians to prosper, and should help the Russians prosper in every way we can within reason.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, Larry King Live (2000)

Anatoly Bibilov photo

“(It is) the Russian world we are fighting for, and in this sense, each of us is Russian.”

Anatoly Bibilov (1970) Russian politician

Source: Anatoly Bibilov (2021) cited in " Tskhinvali Leader in Donbas: “We Fight for Russian World” https://civil.ge/archives/439581" on Civil, 9 September 2021.

Vitali Klitschko photo

“Russian soldiers are fighting for the money, Ukrainian soldiers, Ukrainian citizens are fighting for the future of our children - and you feel the difference between the money and the children.”

Vitali Klitschko (1971) Ukrainian boxer and politician

"Ukraine war: Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko says it is 'a big privilege for every man' to defend Ukraine and warns Russian soldiers to 'go away'" https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-kyiv-mayor-vitali-klitschko-says-it-is-a-big-privilege-for-every-man-to-defend-ukraine-and-warns-russian-soldiers-to-go-away-12578968, Sky News, 31 March 2022

Vitali Klitschko photo

“Russians go away, Russian soldiers have to go away from our home country - and after that we are ready to discuss.”

Vitali Klitschko (1971) Ukrainian boxer and politician

2022

Zbigniew Brzeziński photo

“You have to ask yourself, 'What was the desire of the people who, after more than 40 years of Soviet oppression, became free?' They didn’t want to be pawns between a residual West that ended somewhere on the borders of the old West Germany and a resurgent Russia. They wanted to be part of the democratic West and, eventually, of the European Union. Those are perfectly legitimate aspirations. This is no threat to Russia –- except to those Russians who cannot conceive of Russia as anything else but a dominant empire that rules not only over the Russian people but over those adjoining Russian territory.”

Zbigniew Brzeziński (1928–2017) Polish-American political scientist

Interview in The Huffington Post - NATO Should Stop Putin From Restoring Czarist Empire, Zbigniew Brzezinski Says http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/03/zbigniew-brzezinski-nato-putin-ukraine_n_5760068.html (September 3, 2014). Commenting on criticisms of NATO expansion to Eastern Europe.

Andrey Illarionov photo

“We are close to a consensus that the Kyoto Protocol does huge economic, political, social, and ecological damage to the Russian Federation. In addition, it certainly violates the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens, and well as the rights and freedoms of citizens in those countries which signed and ratified it.”

Andrey Illarionov (1961) Russian politician

"Q&A: Putin's Critical Adviser," 2005

Adam Schiff photo

“What is striking here is the degree to which the Russians were willing to undertake such an audacious and risky action against the most powerful nation on earth. That ought to be a warning to us, that if we thought that the Russians would not dare to so blatantly interfere in our affairs, we were wrong. And if we do not do our very best to understand how the Russians accomplished this unprecedented attack on our democracy and what we need to do to protect ourselves in the future, we will have only ourselves to blame.”

Adam Schiff (1960) American politician

Open Letter to the Committee Hearing Re: FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers

Harry Truman photo

“The Russians are like us, they look and act like us. They are fine people. They got along with our soldiers in Berlin very well. As far as I am concerned, they can have whatever they want just so they don't try to impose their system on others.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Statement to a group of four congress freshmen (2 July 1947), as quoted in The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, p. 44

Barack Obama photo

“I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us — we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2011, Tucson Memorial Address (January 2011)
Context: That's what I believe, in part because that's what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. Imagine: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation's future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted. I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us — we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.

Related topics