Russia’s goal, according to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is to obliterate Ukraine, its history, and its people.
As the seventh day of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine began with heavy shelling of the Black Sea port of Mariupol, he delivered the warning through video.
Recall that Moscow on Tuesday switched to strikes on Ukrainian cities and appeared poised for an advance on Kyiv as the West tightened an economic noose around Russia in retaliation.
However, Zelenskiy said the West’s response was not enough, asking for more international support, including backing Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union, EU.
“This is no time to be neutral,” said Zelenskiy, whose defiant and emotional tone in regular video addresses have offered his country support and leadership in the war, which he said killed nearly 6,000 Russian troops so far.
Referring to the Tuesday shelling in Kyiv next to Babyn Yar, the site of a World War Two massacre of thousands of Jews by German occupation troops and Ukrainian auxiliaries, Zelenskiy said: “This strike proves that for many people in Russia our Kyiv is absolutely foreign.”
“They don’t know a thing about Kyiv, about our history. But they all have orders to erase our history, erase our country, erase us all.’’
“Don’t you see what is happening? That’s why it is very important now that you, millions of Jews around the world, do not stay silent. Because Nazism is born in silence. Scream about murdering of civilians, scream about murdering of Ukrainians.’’