Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky said they would only accept a Russian ultimatum “when we are all dead,” in response to Moscow’s deadline for Ukrainian fighters from Mariupol to leave the city.
The President of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelensky, said today that his country cannot meet Russia’s ultimatum of hand over the strategic city of Mariupol because for this the Russian forces would have to destroy the Ukrainian people.
“Ukraine will not be able to fulfill the ultimatum. We won’t be able to do it physically. How can this be done? They would have to eliminate us all and then their ultimatum will automatically be met,” Zelensky said in an interview with European media.
It was an excerpt from which was published by the Ukrainian digital “Obschestvennoye”, reports Ukrinform.
The President of Ukraine noted: “For example, give us Kharkiv, give us Mariupol, give us kyiv. Neither the inhabitants of Mariupol, nor the people of kyiv can do this.”
Zelensky added that even in cities already occupied by the Russians, como Melitopol or Berdyansk, “When they (Russian troops) come in, the people of Ukraine don’t give up.”
“(The Russians) raise the flag, people lower it. They killed a man, yes, the people hid, but at night they came out and took down the flag again. What do you want? Destroy us all? We can fulfill the ultimatum only when we are no longer here”, emphasized the head of the Ukrainian state.
The port city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine, is the focus of the war with Russia, in a siege that has been going on for days and which is likely to continue.
Nail 400,000 people have been trapped in Mariupol for more than two weeks amid heavy bombardment that has cut off central supplies of electricity, heating and water, according to local sources.
Russia called in Ukrainian forces on Sunday to surrender and leave Mariupol “without arms”, something that kyiv described as “delirium”.
The Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Oleksii Reznikov, said today that the Mariupol resistance, heavily bombed by the Russians days ago, is “saving” to other cities like Dnipro, Kiev y Odesa, of the intensification of an offensive against them.