KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday his country’s military would fend off the Russian invasion, in a video marking 100 days of Moscow’s all-out assault on its pro-democracy neighbour.
"Victory will be ours," Zelensky said in the video. It included Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak, recalling an impromptu message they posted outside government buildings at the onset of the war, vowing to remain in the country.
On the 100th day of Russia’s invasion, fighting is raging across the east, where Moscow’s forces are tightening their grip on Ukraine’s Donbas region. Kyiv earlier had announced Moscow was in control of a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea and parts of Donbas seized in 2014.
Former boxer Volodymyr Klitschko, brother of Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko, said on Friday that Ukrainians "don’t want another 100 days of war" and called for continued "pressure on Putin’s regime", referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"Yes, we need weapons so that we can defend our common values. But we must wage war on the Russian economy so that Russia will finally leave Ukraine in peace," Volodymyr Klitschko said.
"We must economically isolate Russia from the world." Ukraine’s foreign ministry released a statement in English saying international help for the country was "the best investment in peace and sustainable development of all mankind".
The ministry also called for a special court to investigate war crimes in the country, saying: "Russian criminals should be brought before the Tibunal in the same way as it was with the leadership of Nazi Germany." Shmyhal earlier said the war was pushing his country closer to Europe while Russia was moving towards "isolation from the developed world".
The UN has warned that especially African countries, which imported more than half of their wheat consumption from Ukraine and Russia, face an "unprecedented" crisis caused by the conflict. Food prices in Africa have already exceeded those in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab springs and the 2008 food riots.
On Friday, Putin met the head of the African Union, Senegalese President Macky Sall, at his Black Sea residence in Sochi. At the opening of those talks, Sall told Putin to "become aware" African countries "are victims" in the Ukraine conflict.
Putin’s troops are now concentrating their forces in the Donbas, in the east, where some of the fiercest fighting is centred on the industrial hub city of Severodonetsk. Fighting continues in Severodonetsk’s city centre, the president’s office said, adding that the invaders were "shelling civilian infrastructure and Ukrainian military".
Severodonetsk "is the toughest area at the moment," Zelensky said late on Thursday. "For 100 days, they have been levelling everything", Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said on Telegram.
Accusing Russian troops of destroying hospitals, schools and roads, Gaiday said, however, that "we are only getting stronger. "Hatred of the enemy and faith in our victory make us unbreakable."
Ukrainian troops were still holding an industrial zone, Gaiday said, a situation reminiscent of Mariupol, where a steelworks was the south-eastern port city’s last holdout until Ukrainian troops finally surrendered in late May.
The situation in Lysychansk -- Severodonetsk’s twin city, which sits just across a river -- also looked increasingly dire. About 60 percent of infrastructure and housing had been destroyed, while internet, mobile network and gas services had been knocked out, said the city’s mayor Oleksandr Zaika.
"The shelling is getting stronger every day," he said. In the city of Sloviansk, about 80-km from Severodonetsk, the mayor has urged residents to evacuate as bombing intensified and water and electricity are cut off. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov said Russia will continue its military “operation” in Ukraine until all its goals have been achieved.
