{"id":250028,"date":"2022-02-25T07:36:42","date_gmt":"2022-02-25T07:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=250028"},"modified":"2022-02-26T08:27:40","modified_gmt":"2022-02-26T08:27:40","slug":"ukraine-invasion-zelenskiy-strikes-defiant-tone-as-explosions-ring-out-in-kyiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=250028","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine invasion: Zelenskiy strikes defiant tone as explosions ring out in Kyiv"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emma Graham-Harrison and Kuke Harding in Kyiv, Daniel Boffey in Paris and Elias Visontay \u2013 The Guardian Feb 25, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> has accused Vladimir Putin of targeting civilian as well as military sites, as explosions were heard in Kyiv and Russian ground forces reportedly came within 20 miles of the capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say that civilian objects are not a target for them. It is a lie, they do not distinguish in which areas to operate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Zelensky made the claim in a televised address early on Friday, in which he vowed to continue to defend his country. \u201cRussia will have to talk to us sooner or later about how to end hostilities and stop this invasion. The sooner the conversation begins, the smaller Russia\u2019s losses will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president, who also criticised world leaders for \u201cwatching from afar\u201d, spoke after large explosions were heard in the capital, and after a warning from US secretary of state Antony Blinken that \u201call evidence suggests that Russia intends to encircle and threaten\u201d the city. Zelenskiy has vowed to stay in the capital.<\/p>\n

The president said missile strikes resumed at 4am and some images soon emerged of damaged and burning tower blocks amid footage containing the sound of air raid sirens. Early on Friday, Ukraine\u2019s military said it had shot down a Russia aircraft over the capital.<\/p>\n

The UK Ministry of Defence said on Friday that Ukrainian forces had provided \u201cfierce resistance across all axes of Russia\u2019s advance\u201d and that is was unlikely Russia had achieved all its objectives for the first day of the invasion.<\/p>\n

The International criminal court (ICC) said on Friday it might investigate possible war crimes, though did not provide any further details.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian troops are battling Russian forces advancing toward Kyiv as part of the biggest invasion of a European state since the second world war. \u201cWe believe Moscow has developed plans to inflict widespread human rights abuses \u2013 and potentially worse \u2013 on the Ukrainian people,\u201d Blinken told a meeting<\/a> of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Thursday.<\/p>\n

In an earlier late-night video address, Zelenskiy said 137 people had died since Putin launched an invasion by land, air and sea on Thursday, with hundreds of others injured, and claimed that Russia had named him \u201ctarget number one\u201d.<\/p>\n

He warned: \u201cMy family is the number two target. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state. I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian president also voiced frustration after speaking to the heads of Nato member states. \u201cWe have been left alone to defend our state,\u201d Zelenskiy said. \u201cWho is ready to fight alongside us? I don\u2019t see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of Nato membership? Everyone is afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he was worried about Zelenskiy\u2019s safety, Blinken told CBS: \u201cTo the best of my knowledge, President Zelenskiy remains in Ukraine at his post, and of course we\u2019re concerned for the safety of all of our friends in Ukraine \u2013government officials and others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukraine announced it had lost control of the Chernobyl nuclear site near the country\u2019s northern border with Belarus hours after Russian troops began an invasion of its neighbour on Thursday, and the White House said it was \u201coutraged\u201d by credible reports that Russian forces were holding facility staff there hostage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis unlawful and dangerous hostage-taking, which could upend the routine civil service efforts required to maintain and protect the nuclear waste facilities, is obviously incredibly alarming and gravely concerning,\u201d press secretary Jen Psaki said.<\/p>\n

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was following the situation \u201cwith grave concern\u201d and appealed for maximum restraint to avoid any action that may put Ukraine\u2019s nuclear facilities at risk.<\/p>\n

The west scrambled to respond to Putin\u2019s aggression with a range of new sanctions against Moscow, with the US also announcing it would send 7,000 more troops to Germany to shore up Nato\u2019s eastern borders. But even after the invasion there were divisions on the strength of the response, as Russian forces advanced undeterred by the threats.<\/p>\n

The EU faced furious remonstrations from Kyiv after Europe\u2019s leaders looked set to hold back<\/a> from imposing the potentially most damaging sanction on Russia: blocking Russia<\/a> from an international payments system through which it receives foreign currency. Ukraine\u2019s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said European and US politicians would have \u201cblood on their hands\u201d if they failed to impose the heaviest toll on Moscow by cutting Russia from the so-called Swift payments system.<\/p>\n

The president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU was united after discussions of the five-pillar sanctions package targeting the financial, energy, transport and export industries and visa controls.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cToday\u2019s events are a watershed moment for Europe. Bombs are falling on innocent women, men and children. They fear for their lives and many are dying. All of this happens in 2022 \u2013 in the very heart of Europe. President Putin chose to bring back war to Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me stress that these events, indeed, mark the beginning of a new era. We must be very clear in our analysis: Putin is trying to subjugate a friendly European country. And he is trying to redraw the maps of Europe by force. He must, and he will, fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaders of the 30 Nato allied nations will meet on Friday, US president Joe Biden confirmed, as they come under pressure to go further than the two rounds of sanctions already announced, after what British prime minister Boris Johnson described as a \u201cdark day in the history of our continent\u201d.<\/p>\n

The United Nations security council will also vote on Friday on a draft resolution condemning Russia\u2019s invasion and requiring Moscow\u2019s immediate withdrawal. However, Moscow can veto the measure, and it was unclear how China, which has rejected calling Russia\u2019s move an \u201cinvasion, would vote.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian forces reportedly putting up fierce resistance as thousands flee Kyiv<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":250030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=250028"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":250049,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250028\/revisions\/250049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/250030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=250028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=250028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=250028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}