Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has submitted a bill to parliament to establish a national pantheon honoring the country's heroes.
“Today, I submitted to parliament a law on the Ukrainian National Pantheon,” Zelensky said on Sunday in an address marking Constitution Day, according to dpa.
“The names of all the heroes who, across different centuries and eras, fought for Ukraine and inspired Ukraine will be brought together and forever inscribed in our history,” the president said.
“Nobody will ever again dictate to Ukrainians which heroes they should honor, which holidays they should observe or which history they should learn,” added Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Zelensky's presidential office.
“Our ancestors fought for centuries for this right to free self-determination and national independence, and that is exactly what our soldiers are shedding their blood for today,” Budanov said.
The reference to self-determination was also seen as a swipe at neighboring Poland, whose president, Karol Nawrocki, had revoked a high-ranking order awarded to Zelensky amid a dispute over history.
The memorial site is to be built in Kiev.
