Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that the situation in the port city of Mariupol remains as “severe as possible,” adding that it’s “just inhuman.”
This is “what the Russian Federation did, deliberately did. And deliberately continues to destroy cities. Russia is deliberately trying to destroy everyone who is there in Mariupol,” Zelenskyy said in a virtual address.
He pointed to the horrifying tragedy to again plead for the international community to give Ukraine “all necessary heavy weapons” and planes “immediately” to defend itself against the brutal invading forces.
“I want to be heard right now: There has not been a single day since the blockade of Mariupol that we have not sought a solution — military or diplomatic, anything to save people. But finding this solution is extremely difficult. So far, there is no 100% valid option,” Zelenskyy said.
Russia’s defense ministry claimed on Saturday that beyond a small Ukrainian group of fighters still left, Russian forces had “completely cleared” Mariupol.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, military governor of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, told CNN in an interview Friday that Mariupol “has been wiped off the face of the earth by the Russian Federation” but that Ukrainian troops are holding the area.
Watch Zelenskyy’s entire address in the video clip up top.