Facing his Western allies, the Ukrainian leader once again denounced Russia’s military advantage “in terms of artillery and missiles.” “It’s a fact,” he hammered to back up his claim.
For months, the Westerners have been supplying Q with all kinds of weapons, including highly accurate American Himars rocket launchers and French Caesar guns.
Their influence on the battlefield gradually shifted the balance of power to Ukraine’s advantage.
In September, Ukrainian soldiers forced the Russian army to withdraw from much of the northeast in the Kharkiv region. The main Russian battle prize was early November to late February, before the Ukrainians drove the Russians out of the southern city of Kherson.
“The more effective we are with such weapons, the shorter the Russian aggression will be,” vowed Volodymyr Zelensky.
In addition to weapons, the Ukrainian president has demanded more gas from the West as Ukraine faces major energy problems following large-scale Russian strikes on its entire grid since early October.
According to kyiv, 40% of essential national facilities have now been damaged. It’s enough to force millions of Ukrainians to live in the dark and cold every day, between repeated power cuts and lack of heat.
“We need additional support this winter. We are talking about two billion cubic meters of gas we need to buy more,” he said.
Ukraine has had to “use more gas than expected” in recent weeks, unable to use its electricity grid and crippled by several attacks by the Russian military, which seems determined to continue this strategy.
On the ground, Ukraine is covered in a light white coat and temperatures are negative, raising fears of a new exodus to Europe.
Since then, Ukrainian authorities have continued to call for people to be “captured” despite increasingly difficult living conditions, particularly in the south and east.
Volodymyr Zelensky, who talks more regularly with his Western allies, proposed Monday to organize a “world peace summit” to “decide how and when to implement the points of the Ukrainian peace formula.”
However, he did not give further details on when the summit might take place, with whom and under what conditions.
In mid-November, he proposed a 10-point peace plan, ranging from restoring territorial integrity to the fate of prisoners in Ukraine, including food security.
Even as Vladimir Putin acknowledged on Friday that an agreement was “eventually” necessary to end the conflict, the Kremlin brushed aside an initiative, while expressing doubts about the “confidence” Moscow could offer him. His foreign interlocutors.
Mr. Zelensky on Monday called on the Russian government to “take a firm and significant step towards a diplomatic solution”, ahead of the year-end holiday, “a time when ordinary people think about peace, but ‘attack'”.
“If Russia withdraws its forces from Ukraine, a permanent cessation of hostilities will be ensured,” the Ukrainian president said.
During their virtual summit, G7 leaders agreed to establish a “platform” responsible for “coordinating financial assistance” to Ukraine, ahead of a conference in Paris around French President Emmanuel Macron on the same topic.
Nestlé, the food group already in Ukraine, has announced plans to invest 40.5 million euros in a new production site in the west of the country, which will “employ 1,500 people”.
# Belgium context
See full context [BelgaBox] (http://m.belga.be?m=jkgdldik)
GFR/
“Total coffee junkie. Tv ninja. Unapologetic problem solver. Beer expert.”