AGENCIES

Russia is aiming to erase Ukraine, its history and people, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video yesterday as the seventh day of Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour started with heavy shelling of the Black Sea port of Mariupol.

Moscow switched to strikes on Ukrainian cities on Tuesday and appeared poised for an advance on Kyiv as the West tightened an economic noose around Russia in retaliation.

But Zelensky, unshaven and wearing a khaki T-shirt, said the West’s response was not enough, calling for more international support, including backing Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union.

“This is no time to be neutral,” said Zelensky, whose defiant and emotional tone in regular video addresses have offered his country support and leadership in the war, which he said killed nearly 6,000 Russian troops so far.

Referring to the Tuesday shelling in Kyiv next to Babyn Yar - the site of a World War Two massacre of tens of thousands of Jews by German occupation troops and Ukrainian auxiliaries - Zelensky said: “This strike proves that for many people in Russia our Kyiv is absolutely foreign.”

“They don’t know a thing about Kyiv, about our history. But they all have orders to erase our history, erase our country, erase us all.”

Setting out his conditions for further talks with Russia, Zelensky told Reuters and CNN in a joint interview: “It’s necessary to at least stop bombing people, just stop the bombing and then sit down at the negotiating table.”

Meanwhile, the United Nations General Assembly was set to reprimand Russia yesterday over its invasion of Ukraine and demand that Moscow stop fighting and withdraw its military forces, a move that aims to diplomatically isolate Russia at the world body.