The Ukrainian President is also talking to representatives of Western countries about legal action against Russia, such as a special tribunal.
(Photo: dpa)
Kyiv With the help of the international community, Ukraine wants Russia to be held accountable for its war of aggression and the destruction it caused. In his talks with foreign politicians and in exchanges between Ukrainian authorities and Western institutions, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his daily video address on Monday evening. “The main theme of all these events is Russia’s responsibility for war and terror.”
After briefly listing the latest Russian attacks and recent damage, including the loss of water supplies in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, Zelenskiy accused the invaders of destructiveness.
“Well, what can one say about her? This is the real essence of these accidental comrades who have taken over Russia,” he said. “After 20 years of rule, a large part of their state is as ruined as if there had been a war.”
“They are capable of nothing but destruction,” the Ukrainian head of state accused the Russian leadership. “And what they are doing against Ukraine now is their attempt to take revenge. To take revenge for the fact that the Ukrainians kept fighting them.”
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
His country will defend itself against Russia by any means necessary. “Ukraine will never take orders from these comrades in Moscow,” he said. And Ukraine will do everything to restore every object, every house, every business destroyed by the invaders.
Ukrainian army spokesman: Dozens of Russian attacks in Donbass
Even in the cold and rain, heavy fighting continues in the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian armed forces fended off dozens of attack attempts by Russian troops every day, Serhiy Cherevatyy, spokesman for the Ukrainian army’s eastern group, said on Monday. The areas around Bakhmut and Avdiivka were at the center of the heaviest fighting.
The Russian armed forces, supported by combat aircraft, used rocket launchers, mortars and tanks in addition to barrel artillery. The information could not be independently verified.
Russian attacks repeatedly hit the water and electricity supply in Ukrainian cities.
(Photo: Reuters)
On average, the Russian army carries out around 200 artillery strikes in the region every day, said Cherevaty. “But despite these efforts, the enemy has not been able to breach our defenses for months.”
Airborne alerts went off in several parts of Ukraine late Monday evening. According to a report by the Unian state agency, several explosions were heard in Poltava and Dnipro. Further information was not initially available.
Ukrainian minister laments thousands of Russian rocket attacks
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov came up with unusual figures on Monday. Since the war began nine months ago, Russia has used more than 16,000 missiles, he said, targeting civilian targets 97 percent of the time. “We are fighting a terrorist state,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter.
However, his figures do not match those of the President. Zelenskiy said a week ago that Russia had fired almost 4,700 rockets at Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
According to Ukraine, rockets mainly hit civilian buildings.
(Photo: IMAGO/Ukrinform)
According to the General Staff in Kyiv, Ukraine, Russian soldiers continue to meet “an inglorious death”. A Russian unit in the Luhansk region in the east lost around 70 percent of its soldiers last week. A Russian command staff was hit in the Cherson region. Again, this information could not be independently verified.
Also read about the Ukraine war and the aftermath:
What will be important on Tuesday
The justice ministers of the G7 countries will deal with investigations into war crimes committed in Ukraine this Tuesday at a meeting in Berlin. Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann also invited a delegation from Ukraine to the deliberations. The government in Kyiv advocates a special tribunal to prosecute Russian crimes in Ukraine, which deals with the crime of aggression under international law.
With a view to the G7 meeting, the Ukrainian Justice Minister Denys Maljuska reiterated his country’s demand that Russia pay for the war damage. “Russia has to pay reparations, as we have seen in other regions in past wars,” he told the Funke media group’s newspapers. It assumes a damage of 150 billion dollars “which does not include the economic damage and does not include the costs for the injured and war victims and their families”.
The foreign ministers of the 30 NATO countries will discuss further options for supporting Ukraine at a meeting in the Romanian capital Bucharest this Tuesday. According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, this will include the delivery of goods that are not used to kill people. This means, for example, winter equipment for the armed forces, medical material and jammers for countering drones.
NATO’s delivery of deadly weapons and ammunition is said to remain a matter for individual member states because of the risk of further escalation of the conflict with Russia. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was invited to the meeting as a guest.
More: Don’t miss any developments in the Ukraine war – everything new in our news blog