On the 100th day since the bombing of the Kremlin began, the president addressed the people together with the country’s high command in an attempt to show confidence< /h2>
Zelensky assured that Ukraine will emerge victorious in the war initiated by Russia
Ukraine will emerge victorious from the war started by Russia, its president Volodimir Zelensky said on Friday, 100 days after the invasion launched by Moscow, whose troops are intensifying their offensive in the eastern Donbas region.
Thousands of people have been killed, millions have fled their homes and entire villages have been left in ruins since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to invade Ukraine on February 24.
The advance of the Russian army was slowed down by the fierce resistance of the Ukrainians, who managed to thwart a lightning offensive to topple the pro-Western government in kyiv and forced Moscow to turn east, to conquer the Donbas mining basin.
The Ukrainian president sought to convey a message of confidence to his fellow citizens this Friday in a video broadcast from kyiv together with the high command from the country. “The victory will be ours”, he affirmed.
The advance of the Russian army was slowed down by the strong resistance of the Ukrainians, who managed to thwart a lightning offensive
But Zelensky also acknowledged that Russia has tripled the portion of Ukrainian territory under its control. With the Crimean peninsula annexed in 2014 and the areas of Donbas and southern Ukraine under its control, Russia now occupies some 125,000 km2.
Moscow has achieved “certain” goals since the start of the offensive, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov said.
Among other things, Russian troops have “liberated numerous towns” and allowed their inhabitants to return to “a life in peace”.
THE SITUATION IN THE DONBAS
The other region of the Donbas, Donetsk, is not exempt from hostilities, especially in Sloviansk, some 80 km to the west of Severodonetsk, whose inhabitants desperately flee the city, without water or electricity.
“The situation is worsening, the explosions are more and more intense and the bombs they fall more and more often,” he told AFPGulnara Evgaripova, an 18-year-old student boarding an evacuation bus.
Backed by arms shipments from the United States and its NATO allies, the forces The Ukrainian armies have managed to stop the larger and better equipped Russian army, turning the conflict into a war of attrition.
Western countries and their allies seek to stifle the economy with sanctions, hoping that this will force Putin to give in.
The European Union on Friday formally adopted its sixth package of sanctions against Russia, which includes an embargo with exceptions to oil purchases.
the Ukrainian armed forces have managed to stop the Russian army, which is larger and better equipped
But for the UN coordinator for the crisis in Ukraine, Amid Awad, the war “will not have a winner”. Awad stressed that the conflict “has exacted a heavy toll on civilians” citing “lost lives, homes, jobs and prospects.”
UKRAINIAN CEREALS
The United Nations also fears “a hurricane of famines” essentially in the countries africans, which imported more than half of their wheat from Russia or the Ukraine. Both countries are responsible for 30% of world wheat exports.
Faced with escalating food prices, the president of the African Union, Senegalese leader Macky Sall, met with Putin in Sochi, in southern Russia.
Sall stressed that Africa is a “victim” of the conflict, due to the rise in grain prices and advocated that Russian food products remain outside the sanctions.
“We left here very calm and happy about our conversation,” Sall said after a three-hour meeting.
Moscow currently blocks Ukraine’s ports on the Black Sea and thus prevents the export of cereals, which fed 400 million people last year.
According to Putin, the export of cereals from Ukraine “is not a problem”. In a television interview, the Russian leader indicated several ways to export the grains through Ukrainian ports, others under Russian control or via central Europe.
But the Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey, Vasyl Bodnar accused Russia of stealing grain from Ukraine and exporting it from Crimea abroad.
The UN conducts intense and discreet negotiations to unblock the tons of Ukrainian grain , confirmed the UN coordinator in Ukraine on Friday.
(With information from AFP)