Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky poses after an interview with Reuters in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 1, 2022. REUTERS / Umit Bektas
LVIV, Ukraine, March 2 – Russia is seeking to wipe out Ukraine, its history and people, President Vladimir Zelensky said in a video Wednesday as the seventh day of Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor began with heavy shelling of Mariupol’s Black Sea port. .
Moscow turned to strikes on Ukrainian cities on Tuesday and seemed ready to advance against Kyiv as the West tightened the economic noose around Russia in retaliation. Read more
But Zelensky, unshaven and wearing a khaki T-shirt, said the West’s response was not enough, calling for more international support, including support for Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union.
“This is not the time to be neutral,” said Zelensky, whose provocative and emotional tone in regular video addresses offered his country support and leadership in the war, which he said killed nearly 6,000 Russian soldiers so far.
Referring to Tuesday’s shelling in Kyiv near Babin Yar, the site of the World War II massacre of tens of thousands of Jews by German occupation forces and Ukrainian aides, Zelensky said: “This strike proves that for many people in Russia, our Kyiv is absolutely alien ”.
“They know nothing about Kyiv, about our history. But everyone has an order to erase our history, to erase our country, to erase us all. “
The port of Mariupol in Ukraine’s southeastern Sea of Azov has come under constant fire and could not evacuate the wounded while Kherson, west of the Black Sea, was completely surrounded by invading Russian forces, local authorities said on Wednesday.
“We all died again at Babin Yar. “Although the world has promised again and again that this will never happen again,” Zelenski said.
“Don’t you see what’s going on?” That is why it is very important for you, millions of Jews around the world, not to remain silent. Because Nazism is born in silence. Shout for the killing of civilians, shout for the murder of Ukrainians “
Report by Natalia Zinets and Pavel Polityuk, Written by Gabriela Bachinska, Edited by Andrew Havens and Philippa Fletcher
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