UKRAINE: On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged for comprehensive peace talks with Russia, claiming that Russia would otherwise take generations to recover from the war’s damages.
Ukraine has consistently offered peace options, according to Zelensky, and he wants immediate and genuine peace and security dialogues.
“I want everyone, especially in Moscow, to hear me right now.” In a video message published early Saturday, he said, “The time has come for a meeting, it is time to communicate.”
“The time has come to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise, Russia’s losses will be such that it will take you several generations to recover.”
For weeks, the two sides have been in talks with little sign of a breakthrough.
According to Zelensky, Russian soldiers are actively obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid to cities under bombardment.
“This is a calculated strategy… This is a war crime, and they will be held fully accountable,” he stated.
After a theatre in Mariupol, where hundreds of people were sheltering, was struck on Wednesday, Zelenskiy said there was no indication on how many people had perished. So far, he added, more than 130 people had been rescued.
On Friday, rescuers in Ukraine searched for hundreds of citizens believed to be trapped in the rubble of a blasted theatre, as local forces fought Russian soldiers across the country.
After a Russian hit two days ago on a building where residents were sheltering in the besieged city of Mariupol, President Volodymyr Zelensky reported 130 people had been carried out, but that hundreds more were still inside.
President Joe Biden warned Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping of the “consequences” of any assistance for Russia, as world powers manoeuvred to respond to the violent three-week incursion.
The US is concerned that China may provide financial and military assistance to Moscow, escalating an already volatile transatlantic standoff into a worldwide conflict.
During the nearly two-hour phone conversation, Xi emphasized that conflict is “in no one’s interest,” but showed no signs of buckling into US pressure to join Western condemnation of Russia.
According to a US defence official, Russia’s offensive has mostly stopped, with forces around 30 kilometres (20 miles) east of Kyiv facing stiff resistance.
According to the source, Russian forces have made no more movement into the surrounded city of Kharkiv in the northeast, while Ukrainians are also defending the northern city of Chernihiv.
Regardless of the seeming failures, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a celebratory rally in a Moscow football stadium, complete with a sea of Russian flags, pro-Kremlin musicians, and chanting of “Russia! Russia! Russia!”
Thousands of protesters turned out to commemorate the eight-year anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, with many wearing Z-shaped ribbons depicting Russian tanks entering Ukraine.
Putin stated that Russian troops were in Ukraine “to relieve these people of their pain and genocide.”
In a phone chat with French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Kyiv of “war crimes” and stated Moscow was doing “all necessary” to minimize civilian casualties, despite Russia’s destructive bombardment of Mariupol and other cities.
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