Conflicts & War

Zelenskyy says Russia launched 750 cruise missiles from Crimea into Ukraine

Lviv, Ukraine, Aug 23 (EFE).- Russian troops have fired 750 cruise missiles into Ukraine from occupied Crimea since the beginning of the invasion six months ago, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday.

“Since February 24, 750 cruise missiles of different types have been launched at our communities from Crimea occupied by Russia. Imagine, 750 in half a year,” Zelenskyy said during the Crimea Platform summit, according to the Ukrinform news agency.

“They destroyed at least hundreds of civilian objects: schools, universities, ordinary houses, hospitals,” he added.

Zelenskyy believed that taking back Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, would be a historic step against the war in Europe because it would “restore security, ensure justice and reintegrate Crimea into the modern world.”

“We will bring freedom to Ukrainian citizens in Crimea and will definitely restore justice for all those who suffered from repressions and abuses of the Russian occupiers. But in order to win, we need to remember how we got to where we are today,” he stressed.

“The degradation of Russia began with the seizure of Crimea, it began with the terror against the Crimean Tatar people – the indigenous people of Crimea – with religious repression which became perhaps the largest religious persecution in Europe in the 21st century against the Crimean Muslim community,” the Ukrainian leader continued.

Zelenksyy also pointed out that there all people who supported Ukraine and were not afraid to defend Ukrainian culture there were expelled from the peninsula.

“There were murders and torture, humiliation and looting. The occupiers have been doing all this in Crimea,” he said.

The first Crimea Platform summit was held a year ago to gather support for getting the Ukrainian peninsula back. EFE

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