(Kyiv) Russia is blocking humanitarian access to Mariupol to hide the “thousands” of victims in this besieged city in southeastern Ukraine against which attacks and bombardments continue, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday .
Posted at 2:14 p.m.
“I think one of the main reasons why we can’t get humanitarian aid into Mariupol is that until everything has been ‘cleaned up’ by the Russian soldiers, they are afraid the world will see what’s going on there,” Zelensky said in an interview with Turkish television channel Habertürk, posted online by the presidency.
These are “not tens, but thousands of people killed and thousands injured”, he added. “We know how many (Ukrainian) soldiers died there and how many were injured, but we don’t know how many civilians.”
“But, in any case, they (the Russians) will not be able to hide everything […]. Such a number is impossible to conceal. And I think we will all see it when we can get into Mariupol,” he said.
“In Boutcha for example they tried to do it, they burned a lot of people in this region: Boutcha, Irpin, Gostomel. They burned families. Yesterday, we again found a family: the father, the mother, the two children. Very small children. That’s why I say: they are Nazis ”, hammered the Ukrainian president.
Asked about the possibility of continuing talks with Russia, Mr. Zelensky believes that these negotiations “will have to take place anyway”.
“We don’t really want to negotiate with Russia after what we’ve seen, not really, I have to tell you, because we understand who we’re dealing with,” he added. But “we have to find even the slightest opportunity to negotiate. I think it is difficult to stop the war otherwise,” he noted.