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He said he was ready to discuss everything with the Russian envoy if the Ukrainian president agreed to hold direct talks with him, including in the Crimea and Donbass, warning that Ukraine would be “destroyed” before surrendering, even with a “security guarantee”.
Almost a month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as bombings continue in major cities of the country, the Ukrainian president said in an interview for the first time, “I try to confront Russia with everything that makes it sad and unpleasant.” Several media outlets aired Monday through Tuesday night.
“The issue of Crimea and the Donbass is a very difficult story for everyone.” We need an end to “security guarantees” and hostilities, and the “republics” of eastern Ukraine, recognized only by Moscow, were declared in 2014 by Volodymyr Zhelensky and two pro-Russian separatists on the peninsula who joined Russia in 2014, saying, “Once this siege is lifted.”
The head of state, who wants to speak directly with his Russian envoy, also argued that a referendum should “decide on some kind of compromise” with Russia. When warned: “Do we have to do everything (…) time for the Donbass and Crimea to return to us? Yes. But the end of the war, now, that’s the question”.
Volodymyr Zelensky further declared that “history does not want to make us heroes and a nation without,” and stressed that Ukraine would be “destroyed” before surrender.
Since the outbreak of war many talks between Q and Moscow have taken place face to face and via video conference.
Curfew order in Kiev
On the ground, bombings continued early in the week in several cities, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Odessa or Mykoliv.
In the capital, the new curfew went into effect at 8:00 pm on Monday (7:00 pm in Switzerland) until 7:00 am on Wednesday. The children were injured, its mayor Vitaly Klitschko said Monday.
On Sunday evening, a powerful Russian strike, indirectly caused by a missile, destroyed the shopping center in the largest retro, the most violent attack on the capital since the start of the war. According to Moscow, the “inactive” shopping center functioned as an armory. The AFP saw six bodies being taken out of the rubble, with men in military uniforms claiming the soldiers were sleeping there.
The situation is dramatic in the Russian-speaking city of Mariupol, a large port city in the south, located between Crimea and the separatist region of Donetsk and besieged by the Russians for weeks. The Ukrainian government has rejected a final warning about the surrender of Moscow.
According to the United Nations, the humanitarian situation there is “extremely serious”, with “food, water and medicine shortages and life threatening.” And Joseph Borel, the head of EU diplomacy, said “what is happening in Mariupol is a major war crime.”
On Monday, US President Joe Biden and French leaders Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Boris Johnson, Germany’s Olaf Scolts and Italy’s Mario Draghi spoke in a video conference, specifically on the “urgent need for humanitarian assistance to obtain humanitarian assistance” on the critical humanitarian situation and unrestricted access to Mariupol. Pointed out.
President Zhelensky accused Russia of “simply destroying” the city where Russian tanks entered. “They burn it to ashes, but we will keep them alive,” he promised Monday evening.
Biden: Putin’s back to wall ‘
In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, a public demonstration against the occupation by Russian forces was bombed on Monday with automatic weapons, stun grenades and tear gas, at least one person was injured, Ukrainian officials said.
In all, the Ukrainian army said on Monday that the Russians had lost 15,000 soldiers, while Volodymyr Zhelensky announced on March 12 that 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed – statistics could not be verified. U.S. intelligence sources quoted the New York Times as saying that 7,000 Russians had been killed.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksi Resnikov has acknowledged that the situation is “extremely difficult” in the face of Moscow’s ally Belarus’ “greatest enemy in numbers and the threat of a ground invasion by the military.”
EU foreign and defense ministers on Monday decided to double funding for arms purchases sent to kyiv after the first envelope of 500 million euros ran out.
Will chemical and biological weapons be used by the Russians? Moscow has suggested that Ukraine possesses them, which Joe Biden said during a meeting with representatives of the business world in Washington on Monday evening, “a clear indication that he (Vladimir Putin) is considering using these two types of weapons.” The Russian enemy was his “against the wall.”
The weekend will be marked by intense diplomatic activities. Joe Biden will attend an extraordinary NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday, the G7 summit and the EU summit, before which he will stay in Poland, the main destination for Ukrainian refugees, on Friday and Saturday.
According to a UN report released on Monday, nearly 3.5 million people – mostly women and children – have fled Ukraine since February 24.
In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry assessed that Joe Biden had brought Russian-American relations to the brink of “ruin” through his “incompetent” statements targeting Vladimir Putin and calling him a “war criminal.” The U.S. ambassador was summoned on Monday.
The subject of a possible European embargo on Russian hydrocarbons was brought back to the table on Monday, with Volodymyr Zelensky calling for the EU to suspend all trade with Russia, especially in relation to “energy resources”. Europeans, who rely on Russian hydrocarbons, have so far refused to allow the sector.
“No sanctions will be decided this week,” Joseph Borel said. “But the guidelines will be presented at the summit of state and government leaders on Thursday and Friday and will be followed by firm decisions,” he said.
(AFP)