new Delhi: Stating that Moscow is trying to starve his country’s cities for submission, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that continuing the invasion will take a toll on Russia for “generations”.
Zelensky accused the Kremlin of intentionally causing “humanitarian devastation” in an overnight video address, the AP reported.
The President of Ukraine has once again appealed to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to meet him to prevent further bloodshed.
The remarks came after Russia organized a mass rally in support of its trapped forces.
Zelensky said the 200,000 people who attended the rally were similar to the number of Russian forces stationed in Ukraine.
He said Friday’s event in Moscow portrayed the stakes of the biggest ground conflict in Europe since World War II.
“Picture for yourself that in that stadium in Moscow there are 14,000 dead bodies and thousands more injured and crippled,” Zelensky said.
“Those are Russian costs throughout the invasion,” he said.
During the flag-waving rally, Putin on his part praised Russian military forces.
“We haven’t had this kind of unity in a long time,” he told the crowd.
The rally on Friday took place on the anniversary of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The program included patriotic songs such as “Made in the USSR”, with the opening lines “Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldova, it’s all my country”.
More than three weeks after the Russian invasion of February 24, Ukraine developed into fighting on multiple fronts.