Kyiv, August 24: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed on Tuesday to regain control of annexed Crimea that was seized by Russia in 2014. “We must win the fight against Russian aggression and therefore free Crimea from occupation . It will end where it started.” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the opening of the Second Summit of the Crimean Platform, Anadolu News Agency reported.
Zelenskyy said that Crimea is “not just a territory” for Ukraine, noting that it is “a part of our people, of our society.” “Crimea was and is Ukraine, and after the occupation, together with our entire state, it will become part of the European Union,” he said, adding that “the passport of a citizen of Ukraine will also be the passport of the European Union. These are colossal opportunities for all our people living in Crimea.” Also read | Ukraine celebrates Independence Day amid air raid sirens, six months after the start of the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian president added that his country is “strong enough” to see a “perspective of Ukrainian Crimea”. The Crimean Platform is a Ukrainian diplomatic initiative that aims to be an international coordination mechanism to draw global attention to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, according to the Anadolu news agency.
The first summit was held on August 23, 2021, with more than 40 countries in attendance. Earlier, the US warned that Russia is “intensifying efforts to launch attacks against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days.”
The message released by the US embassy in Kyiv contained similar warnings from the Ukrainian president about possible Russian actions against Ukraine coinciding with his country’s Independence Day, Voice of America reported.
“Russian attacks in Ukraine pose a continuing threat to civilians and civilian infrastructure,” the US embassy said, adding that US citizens should leave Ukraine if they can.
Amid the warnings, Kyiv canceled public celebrations of Independence Day. The executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell, said on Monday that at least 972 children in Ukraine have been killed or injured in the violence since the war escalated nearly six months ago, with a average of more than five children killed or injured each. day.
Catherine said once again, as in all wars, the reckless decisions of adults are putting children at extreme risk. He said there are no such armed operations that do not harm children.
“The use of explosive weapons has caused the majority of child casualties. These weapons do not discriminate between civilians and combatants, especially when used in populated areas as has been the case in Ukraine: in Mariupol, Luhansk, Kremenchuk and Vinnytsia. The list goes on and on.
The war between Russia and Ukraine started almost six months ago. The full scale of Ukraine’s refugee crisis is difficult to quantify and far exceeds any other refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
(This is an unedited, auto-generated story from the syndicated news feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
