Sun 06 March 2022:
Ukraine’s independence is in peril, and sanctions against Russia are tantamount to “declaring war,” according to Vladimir Putin.
It comes as Russian troops continue to shell cities that have been besieged.
On Saturday, a promised truce in Mariupol, which was supposed to allow people to evacuate peacefully, crumbled amid scenes of dread. As bleakness and despair pervaded, bereaved moms lamented their lost children, wounded troops were strapped with tourniquets, and physicians worked by the light of their cellphones.
Putin continued to blame the Ukrainian government for everything and lambasted their opposition to the invasion.
‘Sanctions akin to declaring war’
“If they continue to do what they are doing, they are calling into question the future of Ukrainian statehood,” he said. “And if this happens, it will be entirely on their conscience.”
He also hit out at Western sanctions that have crippled Russia’s economy and sent the value of its currency tumbling.
“These sanctions that are being imposed, they are akin to declaring war,” he said during a televised meeting with flight attendants from Russian airline Aeroflot. “But thank God, we haven’t got there yet.”
The struggle to implement interim ceasefires in Mariupol and the eastern city of Volnovakha ten days after Russian soldiers entered showed the fragility of efforts to end the fighting across Ukraine.
Russian artillery fire and airstrikes, according to Ukrainian officials, stopped civilians from fleeing before the agreed-upon evacuations began. Ukraine, Putin claimed, was sabotaging the effort.
According to Davyd Arakhamia, a member of the Ukrainian delegation, the third round of discussions between Russia and Ukraine will take place on Monday. He did not provide any other information, including the location of the events.
Russian troops advanced Saturday on a third nuclear power plant, having already taken control of two of the four operating in the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded with American lawmakers for additional help even as he insisted the enemy was being defeated.
“We’re inflicting losses on the occupants they could not see in their worst nightmare,” the Ukrainian leader said.
Russian troops took control of the southern port city of Kherson this week. Although they have encircled Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Sumy, Ukrainian forces have managed to keep control of key cities in central and southeastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy said Saturday.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:
TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent
FACEBOOK (CLICK HERE)
https://web.facebook.com/ipindependent
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
