MOSCOW — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday accused Russia of attacking civilian targets and warned that Russian crimes in Kyiv and different Ukrainian cities, cities and villages was genocide that “would result in a world tribunal” for the perpetrators.
Talking early Sunday, wanting drained and unshaven, he stated “final night time was brutal” in Ukraine: “Shelling once more, bombing of residential areas, civilian infrastructure once more.
“Russia’s legal actions towards Ukraine have the signal of genocide,” he stated. “Russia is on the trail of evil,” he stated, calling for Russia to be stripped of its U.N. Safety Council vote.
“There may be not a single — not a single — object within the nation immediately that the occupiers wouldn’t take into account a permissible goal,” he stated referring to Russian forces, including that Ukraine was amassing proof to consult with a world tribunal.
“They’re combating towards all people, they’re combating towards all the things alive: towards kindergartens, towards residential homes and even towards ambulances. They use rocket artillery, rockets towards complete city areas the place there isn’t any navy infrastructure and by no means has been.”
Talking with seen anger he listed cities that got here beneath indiscriminate assaults of a sort he stated had not seen in Ukraine since World Battle II: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Vasylkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy.
Russia has denied focusing on civilian infrastructure in the midst of its invasion. Russia’s Protection Ministry stated Sunday it launched lengthy vary cruise missiles from ships and warplanes putting “navy infrastructure.”
Quickly after Zelensky’s speech, Putin issued a prerecorded message of his personal on the event of Particular Operations day and congratulated the nations’ particular forces for “their impeccable service” with “particular gratitude to those that as of late are heroically fulfilling their navy responsibility in the midst of a particular operation to offer help to the Individuals’s republics of Donbass.”
Zelensky addressed the residents of neighboring Belarus as effectively, saying the Belarusian chief enabled Russian assaults on Ukraine from Belarusian soil.
“Out of your territory, Russian Federation troops are launching missiles at Ukraine. Out of your territory they kill our youngsters, destroy our houses, attempt to blow up all the things that was constructed over many years. And, by the way in which, not solely by us, but additionally by our fathers, our grandfathers.
“You determine who you might be, you determine who you may be, how you’ll look your youngsters within the eyes, how you’ll look one another, your neighbors. And we’re your neighbors. We’re your neighbors, we’re Ukrainians,” Zelensky stated. “Be Belarus, not Russia.”
