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Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed the survival of his nation, 100 days right into a Russian invasion that has devastated the nation, claimed 1000’s of lives and rocked international meals provides.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, western leaders anticipated the capital to fall inside days. Greater than three months into the invasion, Russia occupies 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory — up from seven per cent beforehand — and whereas thousands and thousands of Ukrainians have turn into refugees, Zelensky stays in command of the capital.
“The president is right here . . . the Armed Forces of Ukraine are right here. And most significantly our persons are right here,” Zelensky stated in an Instagram video from exterior his workplace as prime aides stood by his facet. “We’ve got been defending Ukraine for 100 days. Victory is ours,” he added. The video is a deliberate echo of the one posted by Zelensky after the primary day of the struggle.
His bravado on Friday partially displays recent provides of heavier and longer vary weaponry from the US and European nations. Ukraine is now braced for a grinding and drawn out struggle with its northern neighbour’s bigger military.
The battle between two nations that are giant agricultural exporters has roiled international grain and vegetable oil markets. Ukraine accounts for about 10 per cent of the worldwide wheat commerce, and the Russian naval blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports has nearly halted grain exports.
Macky Sall, Senegal’s president and head of the African Union, met Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday to debate the influence of meals shortages brought on by the invasion of Ukraine. In a video convention with EU leaders this week, Sall complained that the west’s sanctions on Moscow made it nearly unattainable for African nations to buy grain from Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated earlier than the assembly that Putin would give Sall a “detailed clarification of its imaginative and prescient of the scenario with Ukrainian grain” and “clarify once more what’s happening there, who mined the ports, what is important to do to permit the grain circulation to renew”. Peskov insisted once more that Russia was not blocking the ports.
UN officers on Friday warned {that a} protracted struggle might exacerbate the worldwide meals disaster. Amin Awad, a UN disaster co-ordinator, on Friday stated that greater than 15.7mn folks in Ukraine had been in pressing want of support and that the battle risked triggering hunger globally. “100 days of struggle, 100 days of struggling, devastation, destruction on an enormous scale . . . the lives of thousands and thousands have been shattered,” he stated, in keeping with wire experiences. “Failure to open these ports will end in famine, destabilisation and mass migration all over the world.”
The Workplace of the UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights on Friday stated it had to this point recorded 4,183 civilian deaths however warned that “precise figures are significantly increased”. This determine doesn’t embody combatant casualties. Zelensky has in latest days stated that his nation is shedding as much as 100 troopers per day, with greater than 400 wounded every day. His military estimates greater than 30,000 Russian troopers have been killed, a determine that Russian officers haven’t confirmed and which couldn’t be independently verified.
After failing to swiftly seize Ukraine’s capital metropolis Kyiv, Russian forces have targeting gaining extra floor within the japanese Donbas area in addition to southern coastal territory forming a land bridge to Crimea, the peninsula it occupied in 2014.
Russian troops this week got here nearer to capturing Sievierdonetsk, the provincial capital of Luhansk area which is generally Russian occupied. It’s one in all two provinces that Putin, in justifying the struggle, pledged to “liberate”.
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