Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again urged NATO on Monday to establish a no-fly zone over his country, warning that failure to do so risked the organization seeing “Russian rockets” falling on its Member States.
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“If you don’t lock down our skies, it’s only a matter of time, Russian rockets will fall on your territory, on NATO territory, on the homes of NATO citizens,” he said. Mr. Zelensky in a video address released shortly after midnight.
He was speaking the day after Russian airstrikes on a Ukrainian training base located about twenty kilometers from Poland, a member of NATO and the EU, near the Ukrainian city of Lviv (west).
According to the Ukrainians, these bombings left 35 dead and 134 injured.
“Thirty missiles on the Lviv region alone,” the president said. “Nothing was happening that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation. And only 20 kilometers from NATO borders. »
“Last year, I had clearly warned NATO leaders that if severe preventive measures were not taken against the Russian Federation, it would start war,” he added.
Polish General Waldemar Skrzypczak, a former air force commander, said earlier in the day that the base was used to train Foreign Legion units, with volunteers arriving in Ukraine to fight the Russians. This is also where part of the military aid delivered by Western countries to Ukraine since its invasion by Russia on February 24 has arrived.
Regarding the American journalist Brent Renaud, killed near Kyiv on Sunday, “it was a deliberate attack by the Russian army”, assured the Ukrainian president. Another American journalist in the same vehicle as the deceased was injured, as well as a Ukrainian civilian.