Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday (21) that the country cannot obey Russia’s ultimatum to hand over the city of Mariupol, as that would require annihilating the local population. On Sunday, Russia called for Ukrainian forces to surrender and abandon Mariupol “unarmed”.
“How can this be done? They would have to eliminate all of us, and then the ultimatum would be obeyed automatically”, assured the head of state, in an interview with European press vehicles, which had excerpts published by the Ukrainian newspaper “Obschestvennoye”. “For example, give us Kharkiv, give us Mariupol, give us Kiev. Neither the inhabitants of Mariupol nor the people of Kiev can do that,” he added.
Zelensky also said that even in cities already occupied by the Russians, such as Melitopol or Berdyansk, when Moscow troops “enter, people do not surrender”. “They raise the (Russian) flag, the population takes it down. They killed a man, yes, the people went into hiding, but at night, they went out and took the flag down again. What do they want? Destroy us all? we are not here,” said the president.
The port city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine, is one of the centers of attention in the war. Around 400,000 people are besieged in the municipality, which has been the target for more than two weeks of intense bombings, which have interrupted the supply of essential services such as electricity, heating and water.
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