With an urgent appeal, the Ukrainian President Zelenskyj is apparently addressing Russia and its leadership. “Do you still think you can intimidate us?” he asks. At the same time, he is optimistic after the recent military successes.
Now, 200 days after the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy published an urgent appeal on Facebook and Telegram that contained lyrical elements. “Do you still think we are one people?” he asks, apparently addressing Russia and its leadership. “Do you still think you can intimidate us? Don’t you really understand anything?”
In the text, Zelenskyj asks to read it “from the lips”: “Without petrol or without you? Without you. Without you or without light? Without you. Without water or without you? Without you. Without food or without you ? Without you.” For Ukrainians, the cold, darkness and hunger are “not as frightening and deadly as your ‘friendship and brotherhood’,” the president writes.
At the end of the article, however, Zelenskyy expressed confidence after the recent military successes: history will put everything in order. “And we will, with gas, light, water and food… and without you!” He published a video for the post that shows a firefighting operation in the event of a fire near the power infrastructure. A reference to the recent suspected Russian attacks on energy infrastructure in eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskyy had previously reported on Twitter about a complete power failure in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions and “partial failures” in the Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions. He described the Russians as “terrorists” who were not aiming for military targets, but wanted to leave the people of Ukraine without electricity and heating. The governor of the Kharkiv region had said Russian attacks on “important infrastructure” had cut off electricity and water supplies. The governor of the Sumy region reported that at least 135 towns and villages were affected by power outages.
In his nightly video speech, Zelenskyi had previously confirmed reports that the strategically important city of Izyum in the east of the country had been recaptured by Russian troops. The army had “liberated hundreds of our towns and villages”, most recently the cities of Izyum, Balakliya and Kupyansk. However, the hardest thing is yet to come, according to Selenskyj. He dedicated his speech to those who are currently having “the hardest time”. By that he meant everyone who had withstood Russia’s attack for the past 200 days. “We are indestructible. And therefore we are free.”
