The Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko has been interviewed by Sky News in the UK, and has accused Russia of shelling “for the sake of shelling” in the Luhansk region. She accused the Russian forces of purposefully making it difficult to leave areas of conflict. She said:
They’re just shelling the cities in the Luhansk region for the sake of shelling, and of inflicting fear and more pain and tragedy among the population in an effort to make the people surrender.
She said she could not see an end to war, adding: “I personally do not believe in no peaceful resolution.”
I don’t see how it could be possible at this point in time, when both sides are extremely fired up to go on to the end. And the Russians with the propaganda that we hear coming from Russia, set on killing every single Ukrainian.
But, she said, it was down to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
He is the one who has started this war back in 2014. He is the one who gave the orders to escalate on the 24 February this year. And he is the one who can make the decision to actually sit down at proper negotiations and see what can be done to end this war.
Vasylenko had a defiant message for Russia, saying:
We as a nation are united around the fact that we fight until the victory of Ukraine. Right until the very last Russian soldier leaves the territory of Ukraine and is pushed back beyond the borders and back into Russia. Because we are fighting for our land and we want to live as a free and independent country.
A Russian senator has claimed that the reason for Russia’s slow progress in Ukraine is because its forces are basically fighting against fellow Russians, the BBC’s Francis Scarr reports.
Russia’s “special military operation” was proceeding with “quite some difficulty”, Frants Klintsevich said on Russian state television, adding that he didn’t want to offend anyone.
However, he reasoned, the slow progress was because “we’re fighting one of the strongest and best trained armies. We’re fighting against Russian soldiers and officers with exactly the same mentality as ours.”
Russia is engaged in a “deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address, accusing Moscow of committing genocide.
He also said Russian forces had turned the Donbas region, where they are currently focusing their efforts, into “hell” and said they had killed “many” people in the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine. There was no “military explanation” for the killing and destruction, he said.
In Donbas, the occupiers are trying to increase pressure. There’s hell, and that’s not an exaggeration.
The brutal and absolutely pointless bombing of Severodonetsk ... 12 dead and dozens wounded in just one day. The bombing and shelling of other cities, the air and missile strikes of the Russian army - all this is not just hostilities during the war.
Russian strikes at the Chernihiv region, in particular the terrible strike at Desna, debris clearance continues, many dead; constant strikes at the Odesa region, at the cities of central Ukraine, Donbas is completely destroyed - all this doesn’t and cannot have any military explanation for Russia.
This is a deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible. Destroy as many houses, social facilities and enterprises as possible.
This is what will be qualified as the genocide of the Ukrainian people and for which the occupiers will definitely be brought to justice.
Russia-Ukraine war: Russia has ‘completely destroyed’ Donbas and turned region into ‘hell’, says Zelenskiy – live
President accuses Russia of ‘deliberate attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible’; US prepares to ship $100m of weapons to Kyiv
www.theguardian.com