‘With West’s support we can turn the tide’
PRESIDENT Volodymyr Zelensky will today ask Western leaders for more weapons to help oust the Kremlin’s killers from his country.
The urgent call comes after the US officially accused Moscow of committing war crimes.
Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, warned that supplies must be replenished within a week to get the Russians on the run. Kyiv wants longer-range anti-tank weapons and air defence systems to shoot down missiles.
Atrocities
Mr Prystaiko added: “We are actually winning.We can win.With support we can turn the tide. But we’re running out of weaponry.
“We have enough weapons to stop tanks immediately when they approach us. But to clear out our land we need to have something with a much greater distance.”
It comes as the US yesterday formally announced that Russia has committed war crimes in Ukraine.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said America would share the details with institutions probing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He said: “We’ve seen numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks and attacks targeting civilians, as well as other atrocities.
“Russia’s forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centres, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded.”
Mr Blinken, who is travelling to Brussels with President Joe Biden for today’s emergency summit of Nato leaders, added: “We are committed to pursuing accountability using every tool available, including criminal prosecutions.” Ukrainian forces have pushed back invaders in several areas around Kyiv, the city’s mayor said.
Vitali Klitschko said battles were raging on the northern and eastern outskirts of Kyiv, with Ukrainian soldiers already securing “the small city of Makariv and almost all of Irpin”. And he said Ukrainian forces had “destroyed the plan to make a circle around Kyiv”. The former boxer added: “We would rather die than kneel in front of the Russians or surrender.We are ready to fight for each building, every street, every part of our city”.
Western officials said Russian advances “continued to stall” on Day 28 of the conflict, including around Kyiv, from Kherson to Mykolaiv – where fire crews were pictured battling blazes after shelling – and in the Donbas region
in the east where there are the two pro-Russia breakaway areas.
A Russian tank column was also destroyed by Ukrainian troops and volunteers at Voznesensk in the south – pushing Moscow’s forces back 60 miles from the strategically-important town that spans the Bug river.
A source said it was “remarkable” that Hostomel airport – near Kyiv – was still being fought over when it had been a first-day objective for Russian forces.
They still expect Russian troops to try to edge towards the capital, bringing more artillery into range.
But Ukrainian forces are doing well, they say, to retake small towns. Up to 40,000 invaders have been killed, wounded, taken prisoner or are missing in Ukraine, Nato estimates, although Moscow has not confirmed this. Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned about the conflict sliding into a nuclear confrontation between Russia and theWest.
He said Moscow “should stop dangerous, irresponsible nuclear rhetoric” and it “must understand it can never win a nuclear war”.
Around 7,000 residents were evacuated from Mariupol on Tuesday, where Ukrainian tanks were pictured in the street firing at the invaders.
But more than 100,000 residents are believed to remain in the city where there are “chronic shortages” of food and clean water.
The merciless bombardment has killed well over 2,000 people. One girl, Milena, 13, was pictured being treated after she was hit by a Russian bullet as she was trying to leave with her family.
Viktoria Totsen,
39, who fled the city to Poland, said: “Planes were flying over us every five seconds and dropped bombs everywhere – on residential buildings, kindergartens and schools.”
President Zelensky said that residents in the port city were “without food, without water, without, medicine, under constant shelling.”
He accused Russian forces of blocking a humanitarian convoy trying to reach Mariupol on Tuesday and taking rescue workers and drivers captive.
Yesterday one of Mr Putin’s closest advisors quit and defected in disgust over the invasion.
Western officials said the departure of climate envoy, Anatoly Chubais, was a “significant statement” but that the Russian president still had a “iron grip”
on the Kremlin.