Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has issued an emotional plea for people to come to their squares and streets in protest as Russia’s invasion of the country reaches the one-month mark.
In an impassioned speech recorded outside of a parliament building, president Zelensky called on the world to show their solidarity with Ukraine as he said that Russia is not only trying to defeat “the freedom of all people in Europe” but “of all people in the world”.
He said: “One month already. That long. It breaks my heart, the heart of all Ukrainians and every free person on the planet.
“That’s why I ask you to stand against the war, starting from March 24 exactly one month after the Russian invasion.
“Show you’re standing. Come from your offices, your homes, your schools and universities. Come in the name of peace. Come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life.
“Come to your squares, your streets to make yourself visible, heard.”
According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 2,571 civilian casualties have been recorded in the country, including 977 killed and 1,594 injured.
However, OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher as information from besieged cities has been delayed.
Mariupol has been under siege for weeks, and those remaining are desperately in need of food supplies but several attempts to get necessities into the city have failed.
Meanwhile, fresh estimates from Nato suggest that Russia has lost between 7,000 to 15,000 of its troops in the first month of the war in Ukraine, which is equivalent to the Soviet Union’s losses during a decade of conflict in Afghanistan.
In Wednesday’s video address, Mr Zelensky stressed the significance of Putin’s aggression: “The war with Russia is not only the war against Ukraine,” he said. “Its meaning is much wider. This is only the beginning of Russia on the Ukrainian land.
“It tries to show that only brute and cruel force matters. It tries to show that people do not matter as well as everything else that makes us people.”
The president then switched to Russian to appeal to Russian people, advising them to leave the country so that their tax money will not fund the war.
Displays of solidarity with Ukraine and condemnation of Putin have been seen worldwide, with protests occurring in countries from Malaysia to Japan, Austria to Greece as the international community seeks to isolate the Kremlin.
Speaking to broadcasters after landing in Brussels for the Nato summit, UK prime minister Boris Johnson said: “Vladimir Putin is plainly determined to double down on his path of violence and aggression.
“We’ve got to step up, we’ve got to increase our support, we’ve got to tighten the economic vice around Putin, sanctioning more people today as we are.”
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