Calling for Ukraine’s peace amid continued Russian attacks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wished his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, “death,” in a now widely shared Christmas Eve video.
“Today, we all share one dream. And we have one wish for everyone: ‘May he perish,’ as everyone says to themselves,” Zelenskyy said.
“When we turn to God, of course, we ask for something greater. We ask for peace for Ukraine. We fight for it, we pray for it, we deserve it,” he said, adding, “we will not lose our way in the darkness.”
Russia launched missile and drone strikes across Ukraine, killing at least three people and causing power outages. “Massive shellings, ballistic missiles, Kinzhal strikes – everything was used. This is how the godless strike. This is how those who have nothing in common with Christianity or with anything human,” the Ukrainian president said in his video message.
Meanwhile, the United States and Ukraine have seemed to reach a consensus on several critical issues aimed at bringing an end to the nearly four-year conflict, but sensitive issues around territorial control in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, along with the management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is currently under Russian control, remain unresolved, Zelenskyy had earlier said.
Speaking on the US-offered 20-point plan on December 23, Zelenskyy made it clear that he was willing to withdraw troops from the country’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end Russia’s war, if Moscow also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarised zone monitored by international forces.
Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from the land it has seized. In fact, Moscow has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas — an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70 per cent of Donetsk — the two areas that make up the Donbas.
Asked about the plan, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday, December 24, that Moscow would decide its position based on information received by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who met with US envoys in Florida over the weekend. Peskov declined to share further details.
(With PTI inputs)
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