The president of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelenski, urged this Saturday to “restore the territorial integrity” of his country following 23 days of invasion by the Russian military, which amounted to as many as those who demonstrated on Friday in Moscow for the eighth anniversary of the annexation. of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
“I want everyone to listen to me now, especially in Moscow. It’s time to meet us. Time to talk. It is time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise, Russia’s losses will be such that it will not have several generations to ascend,” Zelensky said in a video released this morning on the website of the Ukrainian presidency.
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Regarding the demonstration that hosted the Luzniki stadium in Moscow on Friday, which the Russian Interior Ministry estimated at around 200,000 people, addressed by President Vladimir Putin, Zelensky stated that “approximately the same number of Russian troops participated in the invasion from Ukraine”.
“Imagine there are 14,000 dead bodies and tens of thousands more wounded and maimed in that Moscow stadium. There are already so many Russian losses from this invasion,” he added.
“This is the price of war. A little over three weeks. The war must end,” he insisted.
According to the Russian authorities, more than 200,000 Russians supported this Friday the “special military operation” in Ukraine during a massive patriotic act in Moscow, with slogans such as “For a world without Nazism!”, “For the president!” and “For Russia!” and that included several concerts by popular singers close to the Kremlin.
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Regarding the invasion, Zelensky mentioned in his video that this Friday there were seven humanitarian corridors in Ukraine. Six in the Sumy region and one in the Donetsk region, and that more than 9,000 people were deported from the Mariupol site.
“In total, more than 180,000 Ukrainians have been rescued during the humanitarian corridors,” he said.
The Ukrainian ruler, however, denounced that the Russian military continues to block the supply of humanitarian items in most directions to surrounding cities.
“This is a perfectly conscious tactic. They have a clear order to do absolutely everything so that the humanitarian catastrophe in the Ukrainian cities is an ‘argument’ for the Ukrainians to cooperate with the occupiers”, he said, considering that attitude to be “a war crime”.
Therefore, he held them responsible for those actions. “Every Russian figure who gives such orders and every Russian soldier who carries them out will be identified. And he will receive a mandatory one-way ticket to The Hague. In the city where the International Criminal Court is located.”
Zelensky also reported that heavy fighting took place in the Kharkiv region, especially near Izyum, and that the Ukrainian army detained the occupiers in the Kyiv, Sumy and Chernihiv region in the south.
“It seems that your military commanders cannot offer your political leadership anything but cruel and misguided tactics to wear us down, to wear Ukraine down,” he said.
Zelenski announced that he will continue in the coming days to appeal to the peoples of the world to ask for peace for Ukraine, and mentioned Switzerland, as well as Israel, Italy and Japan.
