Kremlin creating ‘a humanitarian catastrophe’
UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russian forces are blockading his country’s largest cities to wear the population into submission but he warned the strategy will fail and Moscow will lose in the long run if it does not end its war.
Mr Zelensky (pictured) accused the Kremlin of deliberately creating “a humanitarian catastrophe” and appealed for Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet him, using a huge Moscow stadium rally where Mr Putin lavished praise on Russian forces on Friday to illustrate what was at stake.
“Just picture for yourself that in that stadium in
Moscow there are 14,000 dead bodies and tens of thousands more injured and maimed. Those are the Russian costs throughout the invasion,” Mr Zelensky said in a video address to the nation recorded outside the presidential office in Kyiv.
The rally and concert in Moscow were held to commemorate the anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014. The event included patriotic songs such as Made In The USSR,” with the opening lines “Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldova, it’s all my country”.
“We have not had unity like this for a long time,” Mr Putin told the crowd.
The rally took place as Russia has faced heavier-thanexpected losses on the battlefield and increasingly authoritarian rule at home. Russian police have detained thousands of people at protests against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Fighting continued on multiple fronts in Ukraine. In the besieged port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian and
Russian forces battled over the Azovstal steel plant, one of the biggest in Europe, Vadym Denysenko, adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said.
“I can say that we have lost this economic giant,” Denysenko said in televised remarks. “In fact, one of the largest metallurgical plants in Europe is actually being destroyed.”
Mr Zelensky said Russian forces are blockading the largest cities with the goal of creating such miserable conditions that Ukrainians will cooperate.