Zelenskiy’s criticism of the West has escalated in recent days as the European Union slowly moves towards a possible embargo on Russian oil and thousands of Russian forces attempt to encircle two key cities of the East, Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
Three months after its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has abandoned its assault on the capital kyiv and is trying to consolidate control of the eastern industrial region of Donbas, where it has supported a separatist revolt since 2014.
Western military analysts see the battle for Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk as a potential turning point in the war after the momentum shifted in Russia’s favor following the surrender of the Ukrainian garrison in Mariupol last week.
“Ukraine will always be an independent state and it will not be broken. The only question is what price our people will have to pay for their freedom, and what price Russia will pay for this senseless war against us,” Zelenskiy said in a late Thursday night speech Friday.
“The catastrophic unfolding of events could still be stopped if the world treated the situation in Ukraine as if it were facing the same situation, if the powers that be did not play with Russia but really pushed for an end to the war.”
Mr Zelenskiy complained about disagreements within the EU over the adoption of new sanctions against Russia and asked why some nations were allowed to block the plan.
The EU is discussing a sixth set of punitive measures, including an embargo on imports of Russian oil. Such a measure requires unanimity, but Hungary opposes the idea for the moment, because its economy would suffer too much.
“How many more weeks will the European Union try to agree on a sixth package?” Mr Zelenskiy asked, noting that Russia received a billion euros a day from the 27-nation bloc for its energy supplies.
Every day of dithering, weakness, various arguments or proposals to “pacify” the aggressor at the expense of the victim means that more Ukrainians will be killed.”
Zelenskiy’s comments mark the second day in a row that he has sharpened his critique of the global approach to war.
On Wednesday, he criticized suggestions that kyiv should make concessions to bring peace, saying the idea resembled Nazi Germany’s appeasement attempts in 1938.
ADVANCE OF RUSSIAN TROOPS
Russian forces attacked from three sides in an attempt to surround Ukrainian forces in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk on Thursday, the Ukrainian army said. If the two cities straddling the Siverskiy Donets River fall, almost all of the Luhansk province in the Donbas would be under Russian control.
The governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Gaidai, declared that about fifty Russian soldiers had reached the highway and “succeeded in gaining a footing”, even setting up a checkpoint.
“The checkpoint was broken, they were pushed back…the Russian army is not controlling the road now, but is shelling it,” he said. It was possible that Ukrainian troops would leave “a colony, maybe two. We have to win the war, not the battle”, he said.
“It’s clear our guys are slowly retreating to more fortified positions – we have to hold off this horde.”
The adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, Vadym Denisenko, declared during a briefing that 25 Russian battalions were trying to encircle the Ukrainian forces.
Reuters reporters in Russian-held territory further south saw evidence of Moscow’s advance in Svitlodarsk, where Ukrainian forces withdrew earlier this week.
The town is now firmly under the control of pro-Russian fighters, who have occupied the local government building and hung a Soviet flag on the door with hammer and sickle.
Reuters drone footage of the nearby abandoned battlefield shows craters marking a green field surrounded by ruined buildings. Pro-Russian fighters stirred in trenches.
The advance from Donbas was supported by heavy artillery bombardment. The Ukrainian army said 50 towns in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces were bombed on Thursday.
The head of the Ukrainian armed forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny, asked on Telegram for more Western weapons, in particular “weapons that will allow us to strike the enemy at great distance”.
The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergue Lavrov, then warned that any supply of arms that could reach Russian territory would constitute “a serious step towards an unacceptable escalation”.
THE DANGER OF CLIMBING
Western countries, led by the United States, have supplied Ukraine with long-range weapons, including M777 howitzers from Washington and Harpoon anti-ship missiles from Denmark.
Washington is even considering supplying Kyiv with a rocket system with a range of hundreds of kilometers and has held talks with Kyiv about the danger of escalation in the event of a strike in the heart of Russia, U.S. and diplomatic officials told Reuters. .
“We’re concerned about escalation and yet we don’t want to put geographic limits or tie their hands too much with the gear we give them,” said a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists. Ukraine and the West claim that the fascist allegation is baseless and that the war is an unprovoked act of aggression.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow expects Ukraine to accept its demands at any future peace talks. She wants kyiv to recognize Russian sovereignty over the Crime Peninsula, which Moscow seized in 2014, as well as the independence of the territories claimed by the separatists.