The president of ukraineVolodymyr Zelensky said that his country cannot fulfill Russia’s ultimatum to hand over the strategic city of Mariupol because for this the Russian forces would have to destroy the Ukrainian people.
“Ukraine will not be able to fulfill the ultimatum. We won’t be able to do it physically. How can this be done? They would have to eliminate us all and then their ultimatum will be fulfilled automatically,” Zelensky said in an interview with European media, an extract of which was published by the Ukrainian digital obschestvennoyereported Ukrinform.
The President of Ukraine noted: “For example, give us Kharkiv, give us Mariupol, give us Kyiv. Neither the inhabitants of Mariupol, nor the people of Kyiv can do this.”
He added that even in cities already occupied by the Russians, such as Melitopol or Berdyansk, “when they (Russian troops) come in, people don’t give up. The Russians raise the flag, the people lower it. They killed a man, yes, the people hid, but at night they came out and took down the flag again. What do they want? Destroy us all? We can fulfill the ultimatum only when we are no longer here”, emphasized the head of the Ukrainian state.
Mariúpol
The port city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine, is the focus of the war with Russia, in a siege that has been going on for days and is likely to last longer.
Some 400,000 people have been trapped in Mariupol for more than 2 weeks amid heavy shelling that has cut off central electricity, heating and water supplies, according to local sources.
Russia called on the Ukrainian forces this Sunday to surrender and leave Mariúpol “without arms”, something that Kyiv called “delusion”.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Monday that the Mariupol resistance, heavily bombed by the Russians for days, is “saving” other cities, such as Dnipro, Kyiv and Odessa, from the intensification of an offensive against them.