AFP
Zelenskyy vows to reconquer the south, NATO warns of a long war
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed Sunday that after his first visit to the southern front, his forces “won’t give the South away for free” as the NATO chief warned the war in Ukraine could drag on “for years”. Making a rare trip outside of Kyiv, where he is stationed for security reasons, Zelensky traveled to the restrained Black Sea city of Mykolayiv and visited troops nearby and in the neighboring Odessa region for the first time since the Russian invasion. “We will not give away the South to anyone, we will give back everything that is ours and the sea will be Ukrainian and safe,” he said in a video posted to Telegram as he made his way back to Kyiv . He said he spoke to troops and police during his visit. “Their mood is confident and if you look them in the eye it’s obvious that they all have no doubts about our victory,” he said. While Zelenskyy remained defiant, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned “that we have to be prepared for it to stay that way for years.” Speaking to the German daily Bild, Stoltenberg said: “We must not let up in our support for Ukraine, even if the costs are high – not only in terms of military support, but also because of rising energy and food prices.” Russian armed forces have have directed their firepower towards eastern and southern Ukraine in recent weeks since failing to take the capital Kyiv after the February 24 Blitz invasion. “The losses are significant. Many houses have been destroyed, civilian logistics have been disrupted, there are many social problems,” said Zelenskyy. “My mission is to help people who have lost loved ones more systematically. We will definitely restore everything that was destroyed. Russia does not have as many missiles as our people would like to live in.” Mykolaiv is an important destination for Russia as it is on the way to the strategic Black Sea port of Odessa. Zelenskyy surveyed the city’s badly damaged regional administration building and met officials in what appeared to be a basement, where he presented awards to soldiers in a video released by his office. Soldiers in Mykolaiv, meanwhile, tried to keep their pre-war routines alive, with one saying he would not give up his vegan diet on the front lines. Oleksandr Zhuhan said he received a package from a network of volunteers to keep up his plant-based diet. “There was pie and vegan sausage, hummus, soy milk… all for free,” said the 37-year-old drama teacher. – “Hero” – Back in Kyiv, as the shockwaves of war continued to resonate around the world, thousands gathered to pay tribute to a young man – Roman Ratushny, a leading figure in Ukraine’s pro-European Maidan movement , who was just 24 years old, killed fighting Russians in the east of the country earlier this month. People of all ages bowed to his memory in front of the coffin, draped in a yellow-and-blue Ukrainian flag, at the foot of a monument overlooking the capital’s sprawling Independence Square. “I think it’s important to be here because he’s a hero of Ukraine and we have to remember him,” Dmytro Ostrovsky, a 17-year-old high school student, told AFP. The loss put a human face to the collective grief of Ukrainians as the bloodshed continues. The worst fighting continues to take place in the eastern industrial region of Donbass, with fighting raging in villages outside the city of Severodonetsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for weeks. “There is an expression: prepare for the worst and the best will come by itself,” East Lugansk region governor Sergiy Gaiday told AFP in an interview from the Ukrainian-controlled city of Lysyhansk on the other hand of the river of Severodonetsk. “Of course we have to prepare.” Wearing a flak jacket, rifle cartridges and a tourniquet, he said Russian forces “fire on our troop positions 24 hours a day.” Earlier, Gaiday said on Telegram that there had been “more destruction” at the besieged Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk, where hundreds of civilians are sheltering. He also said Lysychansk was being “heavily shelled”. There are signs of preparations for street fighting in the city: soldiers dig in, erect barbed wire and police officers place burned-out vehicles across the streets to slow traffic while residents prepare to evacuate. “We give up everything and leave. Nobody can survive such a strike,” said history teacher Alla Bor, who was waiting with her son-in-law Volodymyr and her 14-year-old grandson. Meanwhile, in the eastern separatist-held city of Donetsk, pro-Russian officials said five civilians were killed and 12 injured by Ukrainian bombing. In Lysyhansk, Governor Gaiday said it was “painful” to see his hometown of Severodonetsk being shelled and people he knew dying. “I’m human, but I bury that deep inside me,” he said, adding that his job is “to help people as best I can.” burs-ssy/mtp