Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says his country needs more help from abroad if it is to survive the unprovoked war launched against it by Russia as Moscow intensifies its assault on eastern Ukraine.
Speaking to South Korean lawmakers via video link on April 11, Zelenskiy said Russia will not stop the invasion it launched in late February unless it is forced to do so by the international community.
He added that Russia is now concentrating tens of thousands of troops for its next offensive on the eastern part of the country, after destroying massive amounts of infrastructure around Ukraine, including at least 300 health-care facilities.
Russian forces continue to push their offensive to establish control over the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, a key target whose capture would link up areas of Russian control to the west and east.
“Mariupol has been destroyed. There are tens of thousands of dead, but even despite this, the Russians are not stopping their offensive,” Zelenskiy said in his address to South Korean lawmakers. Zelenskiy’s figures could not be confirmed.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said on April 11 that Russian forces continued shelling into the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, while Ukrainian forced repelled several assaults, destroying Russian tanks, vehicles, and artillery equipment.
In the face of the ratcheting up of operations by Moscow, the international community continues to seek a cease-fire.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer says he held “direct, open, and hard” talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
A statement from Nehammer’s office said the meeting in the Russian capital on April 11, which lasted just over an hour, was not “a visit of friendship.”
“I mentioned the serious war crimes in Bucha and other locations and stressed that all those responsible have to be brought to justice,” Nehammer said in the statement.
Nehammer’s statement said the Austrian chancellor also told Putin “very clearly” that Western sanctions against Russia “will remain and be intensified as long as people keep dying in Ukraine.”
He also warned of the “urgent” need for humanitarian corridors “to bring water and food into besieged towns and (to) remove women, children and the injured.”