Ukraine this Sunday has once again been an immense field of battle in which it was impossible to record all the bombardments and get out of the main combat fronts unscathed. This Sunday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyhas also refused to recognize the independence of the donbas and the Ukrainian military has expressed concern about a possible major attack in the west of the country since Belarus.
This latest alert, in particular, has been launched by the office of the Ukrainian president, who has cited information from the Army as the source to express his concern about the “high risk & rdquor; of an attack from Belarusian soil in the Volyn region, bordering Belarus and Poland and located in western Ukraine, an area until a week ago less affected by the war conflict. The same sources have assured that, with the aim of causing “more victims & rdquor ;, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has decided to move more troops, from Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, to Belarus. A country that, in addition, in recent days withdrew all its diplomats from Ukraine, according to information released by Radio Free Europe.
Indeed, on the twenty-fifth day of the Russian invasion, Zelensky himself has redoubled the tone and rhetoric used to express his position on the conflict. “If the (negotiation) attempts fail, that will mean the Third World war& rdquor ;, the Ukrainian president has affirmed. And then, in a video call intervention with the Israeli Parliament, Zelensky evoked the Holocaust to ask for the support of this country to defend Ukraine from the Russian invasion.
“(We ask) for help to negotiate with Russia. We know that your anti-aircraft defense is the best in the world & rdquor ;, he considered. “We turn to you to help us militarily and to negotiate, and start with the sanctions against Russia. The Ukrainians helped the Jews in Ukraine to survive,” said Zelenski, who is Jewish by religion.
No independence for Donbas
That said, the president has also ruled out that his country is ready to accept the independence of the separatist areas of Donbas and the Russian annexation of crimeain the framework of ongoing negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, to reach an agreement for the ceasefire. Ukraine will not accept “any compromise that affects territorial integrity and sovereignty & rdquor ;, he pointed out, in an interview with CNN. Finally, Zelenski has also published a new video with a message to the population. “We will win. There will be new cities. There will be new dreams & rdquor ;, said the politician who, in parallel, suspended “temporarily & rdquor; the activity in Ukraine of various parties considered pro-Russian and operating in Ukraine.
A new video from @ZelenskyyUa pic.twitter.com/9oB8ZiMLdR
— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) March 20, 2022
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The decision was made while, on the ground, the Russian army kept on messing with Mariupol, the besieged port city in southern Ukraine, as reported by the city council itself. The Kremlin has given the city an ultimatum to surrender, giving the deadline until early Monday morning. The Ukrainian government has also warned, without providing evidence, of the deportation of “several thousand” of displaced people from the city who would have been transferred to Russia and stripped of their Ukrainian passports. In addition, according to information provided by the Mariupol authorities but impossible to verify, a total of 2,400 civilians have died in this city alone. One piece of information, this one, that differs from what has been provided so far by the UNwhich has estimated at 902 the number of civilians killed as a result of the war throughout the country.
Still, air raid sirens have sounded during the day in virtually all regions of the country, including several in western and northwestern Ukraine, such as those in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Rivne. Also in the Zhytomyr region, where the attacks have intensified at night, a Ukrainian military base was hit by a Kinzhal missile, one of the most modern that Moscow has and which it used for the first time a few days ago, according to Information released by the Russian Defense Ministry. For his part, from Rome, the Pope has also once again condemned the war in Ukraine, stating that he considers it “a senseless massacre & rdquor ;. “Again this week bombs, missiles, fell on the elderly, children and pregnant mothers (&mldr 😉 there is no justification for this & rdquor ;, Francisco has affirmed, in one of his harshest speeches on the conflict.