Conflicts & War

Russia ‘won’t go unpunished’ for death and devastation in Ukraine: Zelensky

International Desk, May 1 (EFE).- Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russia “will not go unpunished” for massacres and devastations in Ukrainian cities as the world has now known what Moscow did.

Zelensky said Ukraine was communicating with global partners to enhance sanctions on Russia, “for Mariupol, for all the destroyed cities and communities of Ukraine, for war crimes against our people. For missile and air strikes at the territory of Ukraine.”

“We expect a decision on oil restrictions against Russia soon…If any company or state helps Russia trade oil, it must also face sanctions. Any sponsorship in the interests of the Russian military terrorist machine must end,” he said in a late-night address to the nation on Border Guards Day.

He said all the free world leaders now knew what Russia had done to the besieged southern city of Mariupol, where an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian defenders and 1,000 civilians got holed up in the vast underground network of bunkers of the Azovstal steel plant.

On Saturday night, 20 civilians, women, and children were evacuated from the plant.

The city is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe amid allegations that the Russians were bombing unarmed residents, blocking aid delivery, and deporting Ukrainian citizens to Russia.

“And Russia will not go unpunished for this,” Zelensky said of the devastation caused by the Russian forces in the strategic and now bombed port city.

“Many of the leaders are trying to help save our heroic defenders of the city… We are doing everything to ensure that the evacuation mission from Mariupol is carried out.”

He said the Russians again fired missiles at the Dnipropetrovsk region and Odesa, where they destroyed the runway of an airport.

“We are doing everything to return normal life to the de-occupied part of our Ukraine. The work of humanitarian offices has already begun in 93 percent of de-occupied settlements,” said the president.

He said the Ukrainian aid workers were actively demining the recaptured territories.

“We are restoring electricity supply, communications, water supply, and gas supply. We are doing everything to return educational services, access to financial institutions and medical services. We are restoring roads.”

However, he said the Russians were still on the Ukraine territory and “still do not recognize the apparent failure of their so-called operation.”

“We still need to fight and direct all efforts to drive the occupiers out. And we will do it.”

Zelensky said Kherson, Nova Kakhovka, Melitopol, Berdyansk, Dniprorudne, and other temporarily captured cities and communities “will be liberated.” EFE

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