(Kyiv) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who on Sunday rejected the very idea of negotiations with Moscow, announced that an investigation would be carried out into the death of a group of Ukrainian soldiers decimated by a Russian missile strike.
On Friday, many Ukrainian soldiers, gathered in the Zaporizhia region (south of the country), died when their group was targeted by a Russian missile.
According to local media, they had been gathered for a decoration ceremony near the front line.
According to the online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, around twenty members of an assault brigade died.
AFP was not immediately able to verify the circumstances of the attack.
“This is a tragedy that could have been avoided,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message on Sunday. He indicated that an investigation would be opened into the circumstances of the Russian strike.
The Ukrainian military confirmed that a number of soldiers had been killed, without specifying the number.
“On November 3, the enemy carried out insidious attacks in the direction of Zaporizhia,” the Ukrainian army commented on Saturday.
“He notably fired an Iskander-M missile at the personnel of the 128e mountain assault brigade, killing the soldiers and causing injuries of varying severity to residents of the region,” the army added.
A Ukrainian soldier wrote on social media that 22 people from the brigade had been killed and that they were gathered for a decoration ceremony.
The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, said on Saturday that it had inflicted heavy losses on a Ukrainian unit in the Zaporizhia region, saying that up to thirty soldiers had been killed.
Missiles at a shipyard
Questioned by the American television channel NBC, President Zelensky also assured that he was “not ready” for discussions with Russia, unless Moscow withdraws its troops from Ukraine.
The United States “knows that I am not prepared to talk with terrorists, because their word is worthless,” he said.
The Ukrainian president was commenting on reports that American and European officials have discussed negotiations with his government to end the war.
He also spoke after a senior Ukrainian commander said this week that the two armies were trapped in a war of attrition and positions.
PHOTO ANATOLII STEPANOV, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
“For now, I have no relationship with the Russians, and they know my position,” he said, adding that “they must leave our territory, and only then the world can start the diplomacy”.
The conflict is in a “difficult situation”, but not at an impasse, according to him.
“On the front line, it’s no secret, we don’t have air defense,” he recalled. “This is why Russia controls the skies. If they control all of the skies, we can’t move forward quickly – until we have air defense.”
The front line, more than a thousand kilometers long, has barely moved for almost a year despite the counter-offensive that Ukraine has been waging since June to try to liberate the occupied territories in the East and South.
As part of this counter-offensive, Kyiv forces on Saturday seriously damaged, with long-range missile fire, a Russian shipyard on the east coast of the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia.
These shots damaged a ship and caused debris to fall onto a quay, Russian authorities admitted.
“On the evening of November 4, the Ukrainian armed forces successfully carried out strikes against the maritime and port infrastructure of the Zaliv shipyard in the temporarily occupied city of Kerch,” the Ukrainian army announced on Saturday.