This happened last night: Zelensky again asks for heavy weapons, mayor fears Mariupol extermination | War Ukraine

“Ukraine cannot shoot down Russian missiles with shotguns and machine guns,” Zelensky said. He cited the hard-fought port city of Mariupol as an example. “The city cannot be liberated without sufficient supplies of tanks, heavy equipment and aircraft.”

The Ukrainian president had already asked his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda for heavy weapons in a video conference on Saturday. Zelensky warned that without the supply of fighter jets and tanks to the Ukrainian armed forces, the Russian military could pose a later threat to NATO’s neighbors.

“If Ukraine’s partners don’t help with planes and tanks – and they have those capabilities – then there is a great risk that the Russian army poses a missile threat not only to the territory of our neighbors Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and the Baltic states, but also a direct general military threat,” Zelensky said, according to the Ukrainian president’s website.

Poland hinted several weeks ago about a possible indirect transfer of its MiG-29 fighter jets, developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s, to the Ukrainian armed forces. Since a direct transfer of these fighter jets could be seen as a provocation, they must first be handed over to the US armed forces. The United States rejected this move because it could lead to a direct confrontation between NATO forces and the Russian military, which could mean an escalation of the war, the argument goes.

It was no coincidence that Zelensky mentioned Mariupol as an example in his video message. The city, surrounded by Russian troops, was the scene of “extremely heavy fighting” last night, Mayor Vadim Boychenko said in an interview with Ukraine’s Unian news agency. According to him, the defenders offer “heroic resistance” to the Russian attackers but they are “relentless” against all residents, including ethnic Russians, it sounded accusing.

“They were not instructed to protect anyone,” Boychenko said. Their job is simply to wipe the city off the map, including its inhabitants. This is just genocide, there can be no other name for it.”

Close to the Moscow-recognized ‘republics’ of pro-Russian separatists, Donetsk and Luhansk, of strategic importance for a ‘land corridor’ between these areas and Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, the port city is still in Ukrainian territory. hands. “And our soldiers are doing everything they can to make sure it stays that way in the future,” Boychenko said.

However, some parts of the city are already under Russian control. “The city is surrounded, the ring is getting tighter and tighter.” The mayor declined to comment on the future of the city or on liberation by Ukrainian troops from outside. “Even the General Staff of the Ukrainian army has no answer,” Boychenko said. “I think we have to have patience and strength, time will tell.”

Mariupol was the ninth largest city in Ukraine before the Russian invasion with about 450,000 inhabitants. Most residents have now fled, but the approximately 150,000 who remain behind have to survive without electricity while drinking water, food and shelter are becoming increasingly scarce. “They live in dramatic situations,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday after the EU summit in Brussels.

He announced that France, Turkey and Greece are planning “a humanitarian operation” to evacuate the remaining inhabitants “soon”. “I will have another meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 48 to 72 hours to fine-tune the details and secure the terms,” ​​Macron said.

More than 2,000 civilians have been killed in the port city on the Sea of ​​Azov, according to a latest report from the city authorities. According to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk, about 100,000 people should be evacuated from Mariupol.