Zelensky: ‘Genocide is happening in 21st century Europe’
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has described Russian attacks in Ukraine as genocide.
In a US television interview, Mr Zelensky said that there were more than 100 nationalities in Ukraine and "this is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities. We are citizens of Ukraine and we don't want to be subdued to the policy of Russian Federation".
In an excerpt of the interview released by CBS before it aired, he said: "This is the reason we are being destroyed and exterminated. And this is happening in the Europe of the 21st century. So this is the torture of the whole nation." Russia’s defence ministry has rejected the claims of atrocities against civilians in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv as a "provocation".
The ministry said that "not a single civilian has faced any violent action by the Russian military" in Bucha. Meanwhile, Ukrainian military said Russian troops had completed their pullback from the country's north.
The military's general staff said yesterday that Russian units had withdrawn from areas in the country's north to neighbouring Belarus, which served as a staging ground for the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian military said its airborne forces had taken full control of the town of Pripyat just outside the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the section of the border with Belarus. It posted a picture of a Ukrainian soldier putting up the country's flag, with a shelter containing the Chernobyl reactor that exploded in 1986 seen in the background. Elsewhere yesterday morning, Russian forces launched an airstrike on the Black Sea port of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, sending up clouds of dark smoke that veiled parts of the city.
The Russian military said the targets were an oil processing plant and fuel depots around Odesa, which is Ukraine's largest port and home to its navy. The Odesa city council said Ukraine's air defence shot down some missiles before they hit the city. Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Nazarov said there were no casualties from the attack. The smaller port of Mariupol, located to the east on the Sea of Azov, remained cut off from the rest of the country as Russian and Ukrainian soldiers fought for control of the besieged city.