Good evening, fellow Ukrainian families!

This evening I want to talk about a daily issue which concerns us, about politics and whether our country has changed for the past two years; what's changed in it and what we should do together to make Ukraine a prosperous and powerful State.

Let’s start with a mundane issue. Throughout the past week people have appealed to me over the question of what verification of social payments means.

The word verification is nice, but not quite understandable.  To make it clear I need to first clearly explain the purpose of Government. In general, throughout the year the State makes social payments worth UAH 365 billion. These include welfare benefit payments and social assistance for the citizens of the country. Just think over this figure, it exceeds threefold the entire budget of the national security and defence.

What is our overall goal?  Our goal is to ensure that such payments are obtained only by those citizens who deserve it and who are entitled to receive such assistance under law.

Those who abuse the law, those who are trying, through cheating, to pump every last Kopeck out of the pockets of pensioners, the pockets of the disabled and of the displaced families must be deprived of such benefits.

Here, I'll give an example. In recent months we have cut off payments to 150 thousand so-called displaced persons, not those who in need, but ‘so-called’.  We found out that there was a sophisticated scheme created: fraudsters would obtain the documents of citizens who reside in the occupied territory of Ukraine, go to the social protection authorities and on the plea of the fact that such families are allegedly registered as temporarily displaced, receive hundreds of millions of hryvna from the state budget.

I will not allow swindlers to plunder funds from the budget and to rob Ukrainian citizens, depriving them of the opportunity to have their social standards and pensions improved because these funds are now pumped out of the budget under such schemes.

Thus, each person who should, under the law, receive any kind of social assistance or extra payment will continue to get it.  While those who, through fraudulent schemes, try to steal money from the state budget and to deprive honest citizens of then entitled payments, will pay the penalty and such payments will be terminated.

Please do not worry and do not believe rumours.  These rumours about subsidies are nothing more than political gamesmanship at your expense.  The system is a mechanism to provide real assistance to the citizens of the country.  We have assigned the subsidies in the budget and every third Ukrainian family receives them.

I also declare that every citizen of the country that needs social assistance will definitely get it. Whilst everyone who steals from the budget through fraudulent activities or tries to deprive honest citizens of the opportunity to obtain such funds, will be punished, and payments to them will be terminated.

Now let me switch to a subject that is discussed by each and every Ukrainian family. What has changed in two years? Why did Maidan happen? And have we really achieved what we wanted?

Frankly speaking, we haven’t achieved all that we wanted and that the Ukrainian people hoped for. And part of this is a fault which I admit, but many fundamental changes have taken place in Ukraine over the past 24 months.

Ukraine has become a truly independent State, before we were actually under the external supervision of the Russian Federation. The Ukraine of today is an independent sovereign country. The Ukraine of today is the State which is now fighting against Russian military intervention. The Ukraine of today is a country of free people, people who won the Revolution of Dignity. The Ukraine of today is a dignified State, where we have cut our dependence on Russian gas, economics and policy.

Over the past two years Ukraine has established a new political system. A lot of new young people have become members of Parliament, members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and various state authorities.

What is it that we lack? We lack political maturity.  It takes time.  Just as it takes time for a child to become mature, so it also takes time for politicians and the political system to mature and it requires the impact of the society as a whole on each political figure. Honesty, transparency and dignity – these are values necessary for the Ukrainian political system to mature.

We managed to destroy the systems that usurped power, in which just one person, his family and his circle had power over all the things. We chose the way of devolved authority from central government to local government in a process called decentralization. We devolved powers, we transferred funds and we devolved direct responsibilities to local authorities to serve the citizens of a particular city, town and village.

Our revolution was called the Revolution of Dignity. And dignity implies respect for every citizen. We remember the Berkut and the Soviet era militia, who mocked the rights and freedoms of every individual.  We set up a new police who are new young radiant personalities, who are well aware of what it means to serve the Ukrainian State, who are well aware that their essential duty is to protect each and every one of you.

And this process was launched in Kyiv, and now it is reaching each of your towns and cities to make you feel that you are under the protection of the new Ukrainian police.

The Ukrainian Army didn’t exist, it had been deliberately destroyed. Yet today the Ukrainian Army is talked about all over the world, as it is an army that is fighting against the full might of Russian military intervention. It is a tribute to every citizen of the country, who supported the army either with donations, or as a volunteer, or by sending their family member to the front line to fight for the country.

Ukraine, which had in the eyes of the world media been a part of the former Soviet Union, has today become an independent and sovereign state for the whole world to see, a European state, which we are building together.

When we talk about a European Ukraine, it means Ukraine should be a State without corruption. We have destroyed much of the system of corruption among top officials. But we should also curb the corruption which affects the lives of each of you. This is when a bribe is extorted from you in a kindergarten, school, hospital, customs office or tax inspection. This is what destroys the moral fibre of the State and hampers the country in raising social standards and in creating a success story for Ukraine.

I want to single out the issue of corruption in state-owned companies. Here we have taken unprecedented steps.  One of our largest state companies, Naftogaz Ukraine has, finally, become profitable as we got rid of the oligarchs who were diverting money from your pockets and siphoning them off into offshore companies.

50 largest public companies will get new independent and politically neutral directors. We will carry out the process of privatization, to leverage foreign investment aimed to create new jobs and to overcome political corruption entwined within public companies.

Apart from that, I would like to dwell on political corruption. It is unacceptable that certain political parties or particular MPs continue to feed off businessmen or so-called oligarchs. We have adopted a decision that this year that the financing of political parties will be carried out exclusively from the state budget thereby breaking the cycle.

Thereby, I want to emphasize that all the newly created anti-corruption agencies will fight mercilessly against any attempt at political corruption on the part of officials, or MPs, or other political figures.  Political corruption means the abuse of political power for the purpose of getting business, assets, money, influence over public companies or any political figure where the only goal is to gain personal benefit. We started to fund political parties only from the State Budget of Ukraine to stop this.

When we talk about a European Ukraine, who would have thought two years ago that we would sign the Association Agreement with the European Union, that the Ukrainian economy would become part of the joint European economy and that Ukrainian citizens would be granted visa-free travel to the European Union, that we would become Europeans.

With our Ukrainian biometric passport we will be able cross the borders of the European Union without visas, without barriers and would feel dignified and respected members of the great European family.

So this is what we have achieved. And this course is irreversible. No one can ever return Ukraine to the Soviet era or pro-Russian past. It is now an independent sovereign state, and that is the achievement of each of you, each of us, when we were standing in the Maidan, and when day after day we are fighting for the values of the Maidan.

We have to go forward. We, as Ukrainians, will never surrender. We have been fighting and will continue to fight.  We have won and we will continue to win.

May God protect Ukraine!

Rest in peace, all of the deceased of Maidan!

May God protect the Ukrainian army, our State and each and every family.