Tag: 2022

The statement made by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, on 6 August 2022.

Dear Ukrainians, I wish you health!

I will brief you on the past week.

First of all, I want to thank all our soldiers, who are extremely bravely – and in the hottest points of the frontline, with simply superhuman efforts – holding back the enemy.

The Russian army will not change its tactics. The occupiers know that they will lose to the Ukrainians in direct struggle, they are inferior in skill, and that is why the enemy is counting on artillery and indiscriminate shelling.

They try to destroy everything in front of them and enter the ruins. And I am grateful to everyone who, even in such conditions, still is containing the occupiers in Donbas, in Kharkiv region, in the Mykolaiv direction – wherever the confrontation is the most acute.

During this week, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and our intelligence have achieved powerful results in destroying the logistics of the Russian army, the rear bases of the occupiers. And every strike on the enemy’s ammunition depots, on their command posts, on accumulations of Russian equipment saves the lives of all of us, the lives of Ukrainian military and civilians.

Of course, I thank the partners – everyone who supplies Ukraine with the necessary weapons. In particular, another package of support from the United States was approved this week, which also includes ammunition for the HIMARS systems. Thank you very much. All of them are used as accurately and beneficially as possible for the overall strategy of our defense. We are doing everything to get yet more effective and modern weapons.

It was possible to restore the sea export of Ukrainian agricultural products. Our ports on the Black Sea are operating again. And although it is still too early to give general assessments of the process, we can still say that it is positive both for our state and for all our partners.

However, the key security risk has not yet been removed. The threat of Russian provocations and terrorist attacks remains. Everyone should be aware of this.

But if the partners fulfill their part of the commitment and guarantee the security of the supply, it will really solve the global food crisis.

And we must not forget that the restoration of our sea exports was made possible primarily thanks to our soldiers – all those who defend Odesa and secured the liberation of Snake Island. These are simply heroes.

During the week, opportunities for Ukraine in the African direction were significantly expanded. There were new contacts with state leaders and communication with journalists. I will continue this work next week – another series of negotiations is planned.

Unfortunately, we have a significant worsening of the situation around the Zaporizhzhia NPP. Russian terrorists became the first in the world to use a nuclear plant for terror. The biggest in Europe! We will draw the world’s attention to this and insist on new sanctions against Russia for creating such a global threat.

And despite the fact that the Russian shelling of the nuclear plant is one of the most dangerous crimes against Ukrainians and all Europeans, against the right to life of every person, for some reason there is no report or even a simple notification from Amnesty International about it. A very eloquent silence, which once again indicates the manipulative selectivity of this organization.

This week there are new sanction steps from Canada and the United States. Switzerland made an important decision regarding support for the seventh EU sanctions package. The general tendency to strengthen sanctions remains unchanged and will continue increasing the price for this terror, terror against our people, for the terrorist state.

I want to thank everyone who develops our UNITED24 public charity platform, and all the ambassadors of this platform – Andriy Shevchenko, Elina Svitolinia, Liev Schreiber, the band Imagine Dragons, Demna. This week we summed up the three-month results of work the UNITED24 platform. More than UAH 6 billion were raised in contributions for reconstruction, equipment for hospitals, for the purchase of ambulances – dozens of ambulances were purchased. There is already the first helicopter bought using the funds raised by UNITED24. It will be used to rescue the wounded. It was possible to attract help from more than a hundred countries.

One of the most important areas for August and September is the implementation of our Fast Recovery Plan. What needs to be done in the territory liberated from the enemy to give people conditions for a normal life and to prepare for the autumn and winter season. In total, 1,060 settlements have already been liberated, and the absolute majority of them require significant restoration work, demining, and the construction of social facilities. And I thank all our partners who joined the relevant work.

In particular, this week the delegation of Estonia visited the districts of Zhytomyr region, which the country is helping with recovery. Estonia was the first within the Fast Recovery Plan to choose objects for financing.

We work with diplomats and companies in all other areas that need support and restoration.

We believe in our defenders! We help the defense!

Let’s remain united and do everything for the victory of Ukraine! It will be!

Eternal glory to our soldiers!

Glory to Ukraine!

The statement made by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, on 5 August 2022.

Dear Ukrainians!

Three vessels with grain for export left our ports today – from Odesa and Chornomorsk. Almost 60,000 tonnes of corn are on board, which are expected by consumers in Turkey, the UK, and Ireland.

The first new vessel since February 24 is heading to the port of Chornomorsk for loading.

The main thing now is the constant increase in exports. Every adequate world player is interested in this. The more our grain will be on the global market, the smaller will be the harvest of political chaos in countries, primarily in Africa and Asia, but not only there. We must remember that this year the demand for imported food in Europe is much higher than expected. European harvests are smaller because of the heat. But the Ukrainian harvest of grain and oilseeds will most likely meet the forecasts – more than 65 million tonnes are expected. Therefore, if the partners do their part of the obligations under the Grain Initiative, the security part, and do not allow new Russian provocations in relation to our exports, then the food crisis, which has been so threatening to the world, can be overcome.

But the situation on the energy market, and especially for European consumers, continues to be very dangerous due to Russia’s cynical and worked out well gas blackmail. Instead of supplying gas to the territory of Europe in accordance with the contracts, Russia even simply burns it – and this is happening more than one week. Why does it do this? So that prices in Europe rise even more, so that ordinary Europeans suffer even more and so that it will be even more difficult for everyone on the continent to prepare for winter. This is a manifestation of Russia’s deliberate anti-European policy, anti-human policy and the effect of the old mistakes of Europeans who did not want to see that Gazprom, Russian gas pipelines bypassing Ukraine are the same weapons for Russia as tanks and artillery, and each of us, each in Europe is a target for them.

And we all have to defend ourselves now. Together to prepare for the new heating season. Together to respond to any provocations of Russia in the energy sector. Together to develop sanctions in response to Russian blackmail and terror.

Today, the occupiers created another extremely risky situation for everyone in Europe – they fired at the Zaporizhzhia NPP, twice in one day. This is the largest nuclear power plant on our continent. And any shelling of this facility is an open, brazen crime, an act of terror. Russia should bear responsibility for the very fact of creating a threat to the nuclear power plant. And this is not only another argument in favor of recognizing Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. This is an argument in favor of applying tough sanctions against the entire Russian nuclear industry – from Rosatom to all related companies and individuals. This is purely a matter of safety. The one who creates nuclear threats to other nations is definitely not capable of using nuclear technologies safely.

Today I held a meeting devoted to the sanctions policy, confiscation of Russian assets. As government officials reported, assets worth UAH 28 billion have already been forcibly seized in Ukraine. This work continues. More than 900 facilities belonging to the Russian state are proposed to be confiscated. And if we evaluate the property package not only of the terrorist state, but also of its residents, then this are 36,000 items for seizure. All this will be sent to compensate for the damages that Russia causes through war and terror.

I also heard the results of the work of the group on the development and implementation of the international compensation mechanism and confiscation of Russian assets abroad. All our partners are actively working on this – in Europe, in the United States. Work on bills that will expand the possibilities for the confiscation of Russian assets for Ukraine is underway.

And Donbas burned out by Russian strikes, the abuse of the occupiers over Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, the shelling of Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk region, Sumy region, Chernihiv region, Kyiv region, Zhytomyr region, Odesa region and other regions of Ukraine are what Russia will surely pay for: both politically and financially, and with its own future, which Russia is losing with every strike on our territory.

I spoke today with the President of Malawi. It is another African state, the ninth country, which Ukraine is in contact with for the first time at the highest level in the entire history of our independence. I assured Mr. President that Ukraine will make every effort so that every country interested in our agricultural products can meet its consumption needs. We also discussed other issues of stability and our cooperation in international organizations.

I also signed a decree awarding our soldiers. A total of 192 combatants were given state awards, 18 of them, unfortunately, posthumously.

Eternal gratitude to all who is fighting for our great state!

Thank you, great people of Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine!

The statement made by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, on 4 August 2022.

Ukrainians!

Today, Russian terrorists once again fired at Toretsk, Donetsk region, hitting public transport stop. Eight people died, three children are among those injured. Residential buildings were damaged by projectile fragments and the blast wave – those are ordinary high-rise buildings. St. Panteleimon Church was also damaged, the priest was wounded.

It was a deliberate strike by the occupiers, another act of terror – cynical and calculated. They knew where they were hitting, and they obviously wanted people to get hurt.

However, we do not see clear and timely reports from some international organizations regarding this and thousands of other crimes committed by Russian terrorists. We saw today a completely different report from Amnesty International, which unfortunately tries to amnesty the terrorist state and shift the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim.

There cannot be – even hypothetically – any condition under which any Russian attack on Ukraine becomes justified. Aggression against our state is unprovoked, invasive and openly terroristic. And if someone makes a report in which the victim and the aggressor are allegedly the same in something, if some data about the victim is analyzed and what the aggressor was doing at that time is ignored, this cannot be tolerated.

Almost 200 religious buildings alone – temples and prayer houses of various denominations – were damaged or destroyed by Russian strikes. Almost 900 medical facilities. Over 2,200 educational institutions. Dozens of universities, hundreds of schools and kindergartens. The occupiers repeatedly deliberately fired artillery and mortars at people queuing for water, at evacuation buses, and repeatedly at public transport stops. The Russian army did not even refrain from striking at the memorials to the victims of the Holocaust, at the cemeteries… At the camp with prisoners of war in Olenivka. And there are no reports about it for some reason. This is immoral selectivity.

Anyone who amnesties Russia and who artificially creates such an informational context that some attacks by terrorists are supposedly justified or supposedly understandable, cannot but realize that it helps the terrorists. And if you provide manipulative reports, then you share the responsibility for the death of people with them.

Every day we expand the possibilities of our foreign policy – formal and informal. I spoke today with representatives of the African media – from Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Ghana. African countries can be affected very seriously by the destabilization of world markets and global relations provoked by Russia, in particular due to the food crisis. At the same time, in Africa there is a shortage of true information about the Russian war against our country and a surplus of Russian propaganda. We’ll do everything to change this balance.

Negotiations with the President of Guinea-Bissau took place for the first time in the history of our bilateral relations. I noted that Ukraine is ready to be a guarantor of food security for African countries. We discussed the support for our state in international organizations.

Tomorrow there will be new negotiations with a leader of an African country, and in general, only recently we started proper communication with eight leaders of African states.

Every day and in various ways, I remind some leaders of the European Union that Ukrainian pensioners, our displaced persons, our teachers and other people who depend on budget payments cannot be held hostage to their indecision or bureaucracy. 8 billion euros for Ukraine are currently suspended. And such an artificial delay of macro-financial assistance to our state is either a crime or a mistake, and it is difficult to say which is worse in such conditions of a full-scale war.

I don’t want to name the European country that is slowing it down now. Let’s believe that this is still a mistake and that it will be corrected.

I held a meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief today. Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov reported on the current provision of troops with equipment and ammunition. Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny, Head of the Security Service Malyuk, Minister of Internal Affairs Monastyrskyi also delivered reports. We analyzed the situation in the most acute areas of the frontline, in particular in the Donetsk region. Particular attention was paid to the state of implementation of the previous decisions of the Staff, all of them must be implemented by 100%.

I signed another decree on awarding our warriors. 192 combatants were awarded state awards, six of them posthumously. In total, more than 25,500 of our defenders have already been awarded for bravery and effectiveness in battles since February 24. More than 4 thousand – posthumously.

Eternal memory to all who died for Ukraine!

Eternal gratitude to everyone who fights against Russian terrorists!

Glory to Ukraine!