Today, we are celebrating the twelfth anniversary of the Day of Resistance to Russian Occupation. On February 26, 2014, thousands of Crimeans, mainly Crimean Tatars, gathered near the parliament building in Simferopol to say “no” to the invaders. The next night, Russian troops seized government buildings, but that day Crimea showed the world its true attitude toward the occupiers. Today, Crimeans and Ukrainians are once again forced to take part in rallies and demonstrations. We offer you the text of one of the speeches. It was delivered in Leipzig, Germany, by Olena Bohatyrenko, a Ukrainian writer who was born in Crimea and now lives in Germany.

Imagine yourself at the airport right now. Imagine checking in your luggage, going through security and passport control, and sitting in the airport waiting room, while the board says “Leipzig-Kyiv,” or “Berlin-Simferopol,” or “Dresden-Donetsk.”

This is my big dream. Which was a reality until very recently.

I want to invite you all to visit. Do you know how long it takes to fly to Kyiv? Two hours! Two hours and you're in the center of the Ukrainian capital, walking along Khreshchatyk, going to my favorite restaurant, Musafir, where they cook the most delicious Crimean Tatar food, then going up to the Opera House, and after the performance, drinking aromatic coffee in any nearby cafe.

Or you can also arrive in the Crimean capital of Simferopol in two hours, hop on a trolleybus, and travel to the most fantastic sea in the world – the Black Sea. Breathe in the healing air, see the Crimean mountains, then go to Bakhchisaray, the city that was the capital of the Crimean Tatar Khanate, visit the local market, and buy sweet, fragrant peaches. I promise you, you have never tasted anything like them before.

Or you can get off in Donetsk and go to the Champions League football match between RB Leipzig and Shakhtar, which takes place at the beautiful Donbass Arena stadium. You cheer for your team, and in the morning, after a delicious breakfast at one of Donetsk's restaurants, you return home. To Germany.

None of the above exists anymore. It has been destroyed by Russian missiles, vandalized, demolished. To destroy our memory, books, museums, libraries, and history, to say that Ukrainians never existed.

But we are here. We are fighting. And we are defending our identity, our right to the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages, our right to be citizens of Ukraine.

I want you to remember: the words “Ukraine is Europe” are not just words. It is reality. We are close, geographically, mentally, culturally. We have been for a long time, for hundreds of years.

When I hear “just end the war already, give up your land,” I want to ask one thing:

Are you ready to give up Leipzig tomorrow? Dresden? Saxony? Just give up your homes, your land, your people? Are you ready for tomorrow to be forbidden to speak German, to be accused of terrorism or killed, or to be sent to a Siberian prison for 20 years? My Crimean peninsula has been occupied for 12 years, my beautiful ancient Kyiv has been bombed for 4 years. Our planes don't fly, our soldiers are being killed, our Ukrainian children are being kidnapped, and in the occupied territories they are being used as expendable material for the Russian army.

To prevent all this from happening here tomorrow, Ukraine is resisting. And we are grateful to all of you for your support. I look forward to welcoming all good people to visit: to Ukrainian Kyiv, Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Lviv.

Thank you. Slava Ukraini!