New Delhi: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his genocide charge against Russia in his nightly address Thursday and said the Russian military was trying “to kill as many Ukrainians as possible”.
“There was hell,” in the eastern Donbas region that has come under heavy Russian fire, Zelenskyy said. “And that’s not an exaggeration,” the President added.
Zelenskyy slammed the heavy shelling of the eastern city of Severodonetsk — that left at least 12 dead and over 40 injured — as “brutal and senseless”.
He said the “bombing and shelling of other cities, the air and missile strikes of the Russian army — all this is not just fighting during the war. 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 qualify the genocide of the Ukrainian people and for which the occupiers will definitely be brought to justice.”
Counting more deaths, the President spoke of the Desna village in the Chernihiv region, north of Kyiv. He said missile strikes on Thursday had left many dead in the village, which is 40 miles from the border of Belarus.
Zelenskyy told the nation: “Russian strikes on Chernihiv region, in particular the terrible blow on the Desna, there is an analysis of debris, many dead.”
He said: “The constant attacks on Odesa, the cities of central Ukraine, the Donbas is completely destroyed — all this has no and cannot have any military explanation for Russia.”
Zelenskyy continued: “This is a deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible.”
Giving his nation something to cheer about, the President said Ukrainian armed forces were steadily advancing to liberate the Kharkhiv region.
He also mentioned that the first trial of a war criminal has begun and would end with the “full restoration of justice within the international tribunal”.
“We will find and bring to justice all those who give and carry out criminal orders,” he concluded.
Russian commander Vadim Shysimarin, 21, is the first soldier being tried for war crimes in the country. He shot dead an elderly unarmed man in the Sumy region in the early days of the war.
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