MYKOLAIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military was stiffening defenses Sunday against Russian assaults in the east and south as the nation’s president framed the war as an existential threat to all of European democracy.
“The whole European project is a target for Russia,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address, labeling the conflict raging inside Ukraine a “catastrophe” that will “inevitably” spread elsewhere in Europe.
“Russian aggression was not intended to be limited to Ukraine alone, to the destruction of our freedom and our lives alone,” he added.
