Russia is blocking humanitarian access to Mariupol to hide “thousands” of victims in this besieged southeastern Ukrainian city, which is under attack and shelling, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, AFP reports.
I think that one of the main reasons why we can’t deliver humanitarian aid to Mariupol is that until everything is “cleaned up” by Russian soldiers, they are afraid that the world will see what is happening there, Zelensky said in an interview. to the Turkish TV channel Habertürk.
“These are not tens, but thousands killed and thousands wounded,” Zelensky added. “We know how many Ukrainian soldiers were killed and how many were wounded, but we do not know how many civilians.
But, in any case, they (the Russians) will not be able to hide everything. This number cannot be hidden. And I think we will see this when we enter Mariupol,” the president said.
“In Bucha, for example, they tried to do it, they burned a lot of people in that region: Bucha, Irpin, Gostomel. They burned families. Yesterday we found a family again: a father, a mother, two children. Very young children. That is why I say: they are Nazis,” the Ukrainian leader said.
Asked about the possibility of continuing talks with Russia, Zelensky said the talks “should take place anyway.”
“We really don’t want to negotiate with Russia after what we saw, because we understand who we are dealing with,” Zelensky said. “But we have to find even the slightest opportunity for negotiations. I think it is difficult to stop the war in any other way,” he added.