Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday accused Russia of committing “genocide” in Ukraine to wipe out “the whole nation”, the day after numerous bodies were found in the streets of a town near Kyiv after Russian forces left .
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“Yes, it is genocide. The elimination of the whole nation and people, we are citizens of Ukraine. We have over 100 nationalities. It is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities,” he said in an interview with the American channel CBS.
“And this is happening in 21st century Europe,” he sighed, denouncing “the torture of the whole nation”.
Ukraine had previously accused the Russian military of committing a ‘deliberate massacre’ of civilians in Boutcha, a town northwest of kyiv, as well as other ‘horrors’ in the now ‘liberated’ regions. invader,” which sparked Western outrage and calls for additional sanctions against Moscow.
While Europeans and Americans have said that the perpetrators of atrocities should be held to account, the Ukrainian president said he “believes in justice”, but also that no sentence would be sufficient to punish such acts.
“I don’t know what law or prison sentence would be adequate for that. As a father of two children and as a president, I think that these people, if they go behind bars, it is too little for what they have done,” he said.
However, Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated that he was ready to dialogue with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
“After all that has been done, it is hard to imagine that we can still have negotiations with Russia. But that is on a personal level: as president, I have a duty to do it,” he explained.
“There is no other way out than dialogue, if you don’t want hundreds of thousands and millions of deaths,” he warned.
But he said a summit with President Putin could only come after a “ceasefire”. “I can’t even have a meeting as long as they’re bombing,” he said.
“Both of us are going to discuss. When the end of the war comes, and then we will discuss security guarantees together, and the status of neutrality”, while “preserving our sovereignty and a powerful army”, estimated Volodymyr Zelensky, listing the Ukrainian proposals during the talks in course with Moscow.
“And if this agreement is violated, we must have the possibility of defending ourselves,” he warned.
“Once we have discussed all this, all troops must be withdrawn” to return “at least” to the situation before February 24, the day of the Russian invasion. “And after their withdrawal, we can sit down with the countries that will serve as guarantors of security,” he added.
These talks between Ukrainians and Russians have made it possible in recent days to outline the outlines of a possible agreement on a neutral Ukraine, but kyiv is demanding that several countries, including the United States, be “guarantors” of its security in the future. .
“The United States hasn’t provided us with security guarantees,” “we haven’t received any at this point, and we need to receive them,” President Zelensky said on CBS, calling for a mechanism that can really be applied and not just a “piece of paper”.