LVIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the West of cowardice on Sunday as his country struggled to deter Russian troops from invading, making angry calls for fighter jets and tanks to support defense as well as the defense. ground in a battle of wear.
Speaking after US President Joe Biden said in a jerky speech that Russian President Vladimir Putin could not stay in power – words that the White House immediately sought to downplay – Zelensky criticized the “Western ping-pong for who and what how to deliver aircraft “. and other weapons, while Russian missile strikes kill and trap civilians.
“I spoke with the defenders of Mariupol today. I am in constant contact with them. “Their determination, their heroism and their stability are astonishing,” Zelenski told a video camera, referring to the besieged southern city that has suffered some of the greatest deprivations and horrors of war. “If only those who think for 31 days how to deliver dozens of jets and tanks had 1% of their courage.”
Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that her country had listened to Biden “loud and clear.”
“Now it’s up to us all to stop Putin while he is still local in Ukraine, because this war is not just about Ukraine,” he said, “but an attack on democracy.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its 32nd day, has stopped in many areas. Its goal of quickly encircling the capital, Kyiv, and forcing its surrender has stalled against fierce Ukrainian resistance – reinforced by weapons from the US and other Western allies.
Zelensky signed a law Sunday banning reports of troop movements and equipment that have not been announced or approved by the military. Journalists who break the law could face between three and eight years in prison. The law does not differentiate between Ukrainian and foreign reporters.
The British Ministry of Defense said that Russian troops are trying to encircle the Ukrainian forces facing the two areas controlled by the separatists in the east of the country. This will cut off most of Ukraine’s army from the rest of the country.
Moscow says it is focusing on destroying the entire eastern Donbass region, which is partly controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. A senior Russian military official said on Friday that troops were being redirected eastward from other parts of the country. .
The leader of a separatist-controlled Donbass region said Sunday he wanted a vote on joining Russia, words that could signal a change in Russia’s position. Leonid Pasechnik, leader of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Luhansk, said he planned to hold a referendum on becoming part of Russia “in the near future”.
Russia has supported separatist rebels in Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk since an uprising erupted shortly after Ukraine annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. In talks with Ukraine, Moscow has asked Kyiv to recognize the independence Donetsk and Luhansk.
Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, has accused Russia of seeking to divide Ukraine into two, North and South Korea.
“The occupiers will try to pull the occupied territories into a single quasi-state structure and put them against an independent Ukraine,” Budanov said in a statement released by the Defense Ministry. He predicted that the Ukrainian guerrilla war would derail such plans.
A Ukrainian spokesman for talks with Russia on ending the war, David Arahamia, said in a Facebook post that the countries would meet in Turkey on Monday. However, the Russians later announced that talks would begin on Tuesday. The parties have met in the past without reaching an agreement.
Ukraine says that in order to defeat Russia, the West must provide fighter jets, not just missiles and other military equipment. A proposal to transport Polish planes to Ukraine via the United States has been rejected amid NATO concerns that they will be drawn into direct combat.
In his sharp remarks, Zelensky accused Western governments of “being afraid to prevent this tragedy. “I’m afraid to just make a decision.”
“So who is responsible for the Euro-Atlantic community? “Is it still Moscow, thanks to its terror tactics?” asked. “Our partners must step up their assistance to Ukraine.”
His appeal was echoed Sunday by a priest in the western city of Lviv, who was hit by rockets a day earlier. The airstrikes proved that Moscow, despite claims that it intended to shift the war to the east, was willing to strike anywhere in Ukraine.
“When diplomacy does not work, we need military support,” said Rev. Yuri Vaskiv, who mentioned fewer parishioners in the stands of his Greek Catholic church, probably out of fear.
Referring to Putin, he said: “This evil is from him and we must stop it.”
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov confirmed that Russia had used air-to-air cruise missiles to hit a fuel depot and a defense plant in Lyiv, about 45 miles (75 kilometers) from the Polish border. He said another rocket-propelled grenade attack from the sea destroyed a warehouse in Plesetske just west of Kiev, where Ukraine was storing air defense missiles.
A chemical odor remained in Lyiv on Sunday as firefighters drilled pipes into the flames and black smoke billowed from oil storage tanks hit the attack.
A security guard, Yaroslav Prokopiv, said he saw three rockets destroying two oil tanks, but no one was injured.
Repeated airstrikes by Russia have shaken the city, which has become a haven for some 200,000 people who have fled the bombed-out cities. Lviv, which has largely escaped bombing, was also home to more than 3.8 million refugees fleeing Ukraine after the February 24 invasion of Russia.
In a dim, bomb-filled shelter under an apartment building near the site of the first blast, Olana Ukrainets, a 34-year-old information technology professional, said she could not believe she had to hide again after leaving the northeastern city of Kharkiv. one of the most bombed cities.
“We were on one side of the road and we saw it on the other side,” he said. “We saw a fire. I said to my friend, “What is this?” “Then we heard the sound of an explosion and the breaking of glass.”
In a video speech, Zelensky angrily warned Moscow that it was sowing deep hatred for Russia among Ukrainians.
“Do everything possible for our people to abandon the Russian language, because the Russian language will now be associated only with you, with your explosions and murders, with your crimes,” Zelensky said.
Along with the millions of people who have fled Ukraine, the invasion has driven more than 10 million people from their homes, almost a quarter of Ukraine’s population. Thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed.
While Russia’s advance on Kyiv remains deadlocked, fighting erupts in the suburbs and rocket-propelled grenades hit the city of Hagia Sophia, a 1,000-year-old UNESCO World Heritage Site that is the heart of the spiritual world. ID card.
Vadim Kirilenko, an engineer and conservator who is the senior director left in the church, said a strike nearby “would be a point of no return for our landmark because it is very fragile and vulnerable.”
Pointing to the cathedral’s golden domes, Kyrylenko said the cross at the top of the cathedral was overturned a month before the outbreak of World War II.
“The cross on the left fell a month before this war,” he said.
Andrea Rosa in Kharkov, Nebi Qena in Kyiv, Cara Anna in Lviv and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
