If you had three wishes, what would they be? If Kira Rudik could have one wish for the world, she would want “courage”.
The Ukrainian MP and leader of the Holos political party, speaking to Niall Paterson on the Sky News Daily podcast, said she hoped others could “stand up against tyranny”.
As part of a special miniseries on the Daily podcast, Paterson asks people from all walks of life in politics, entertainment and sports how they would use Three Wishes to change the world, their country and their lives.
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Before becoming an MP in 2019, Rudik was COO of home security company Ring in Ukraine. She is still in the capital Kyiv.
One of the reasons she became an MP was to build a better future for her country after the breakup of the Soviet Union and Ukraine’s independence in 1991.
“One of the dreams I had – that I still have – is that the next generation of children [will] don’t know what I’ve been through,” she told Sky News Daily.
“What I feel right now is that we’re being robbed of that dream, because kids growing up right now are already experiencing all that trauma. They know how to hide when the air raid sirens are on. They have seen corpses. They’ve seen much worse things. It’s terrifying.
“It’s something that, on a personal level, I can’t forgive, because we had this dream [and] we are all scared now. And we’ll have to, we’ll have to figure out how to fix it.”
As the war in Ukraine enters its eleventh month, regular power cuts and shelling from Russia are frequent.
“We will celebrate Christmas and New Years in one of the harshest winters since World War II. We all know that,” Rudik said.
His wish for his country is that his fellow Ukrainians have a “better and warmer Christmas and New Year, because I know it will be so important for us to [get] spend this winter,
She added, “I can’t begin to tell you how united people are right now, even with all the obstacles that are happening. It just doesn’t have any other end than us winning this war. And I really believe that [we can].”
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Producers: David Chipakupaku and Alys Bowen
Junior Producer: Jada-Kai Meosa John
Additional writing: Soila Apparicio
Editors: Paul Stanworth and Philly Beaumont
