Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned his citizens on Tuesday night that the country would “resist the last man” in the event of a war with Russia, as tensions continue to form along the border between the two nations.
“Does Ukraine want war? No. Is it ready for that? Yes,” Zelensky said in an address on Tuesday, according to New York Times“Our principle is simple: Ukraine does not start a war first, but Ukraine always stays until the last man.”
Zelensky’s remarks come on the eve of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual speech on the state of the union on Wednesday. During his speech, Zelensky addressed Putin directly, urging him to meet at a peace summit in Donbas, a war-torn region in which the Ukrainian army has been fighting Russian-backed separatists for years.
“It is impossible to bring peace to a tank,” Zelensky said in Russian, before adding: “I am ready to invite you to meet anywhere in the Ukrainian Donbas where there is war.”
To date, the United States and NATO have taken “provocative action” with at least two warships in the Black Sea, Hill reported, due to growing tensions between the two nations.
In recent days, Russia has accumulated the highest concentration of forces in the region in recent years, raising concerns that the country may plan to invade. Tensions between the two nations have since reached their highest levels since 2014, when Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula to Crimea and large-scale fighting broke out in the east of the country. The conflict has already cost almost 14,000 lives.
Russian troops now number at least 40,000 in the Crimea, with another 40,000 in regions along the border, which is about 10 percent of the country’s entire military force, NBC News reported last week.
On April 15, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, warned that if Russia crossed the “red line”, it would “suffer.”
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken added last week that Russia’s presence in the area has raised serious concerns in both Ukraine and the West.
“We now see the highest concentration of Russian forces on Ukraine’s borders since 2014,” Blinken said on April 13. “This is a deep concern not only for Ukraine, but also for the United States and, indeed, for many of our allies and partners.”
Later that day, President Joe Biden called on Russia to “disqualify tensions” during a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He also “underlined the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to reports.
The Biden administration also moved last week to impose sanctions on Moscow for US government agencies’ SolarWinds piracy and intervention in the 2020 elections.
Russia has so far denied plans to start a military conflict with Ukraine and instead accused the Western media of falsely raising tensions.
“Ukrainian and Western media are disproportionately blowing the issue of Russian military activity near the border with Ukraine,” spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week. The hill.
During his State of the Union address on Wednesday, Putin accused Western countries of trying to “force the will of others.”
“I hope that no one will think of crossing the ‘red line’ in relation to Russia, which we ourselves will define in each specific case,” said the Russian president, adding that: “Russia’s response will be rapid, asymmetric and severe. . “
Newsweek contacted the White House for further comment, but did not hear back in time for publication.