By Ben Kerrigan-
Petrified Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for talks with Putin in a desperate bid to save his life, that of his family, and stop the nightmarish scenario his country is facing.
Zelensky announced that he is Putin’s first target, adding that his family is No. 2 target, as he displayed an intense fear for the escalating situation in Ukraine which at the moment indicates no light at the end of the tunnel. “My family is not traitors, but citizens of Ukraine. But I have no right to say where they are now,” Zelensky said.
As Russians troops intensified their invasion of his country, the Ukranian leader sounded helpless and frustrated with the state of affair\s.
“They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state,” Zelensky told Ukrainians in a video early Friday.
The frightened Ukranian leader say is the first target of the Russian dictator. adding that his family is No. 2 target. “My family is not traitors, but citizens of Ukraine. But I have no right to say where they are now,” Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian leader said he was staying “with everyone who is needed for the work of the central government,” hours after the Biden administration told U.S. lawmakers that Kyiv could soon fall.
Russian forces pressed closer to the city Friday, waging a full-scale attack that Western officials said seeks to topple Ukraine’s government. Heavy explosions were audible the city, as fear gripped ordinary citizens who have been fleeing the city in droves, abandoning their businesses and properties.
In a video address later Friday, the petrified Ukranain president Zelensky called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to sit down for talks. “I want to address the president of the Russian Federation once again,” he said. “There are battles all over Ukrainian territory. Let’s sit at the negotiating table to stop the loss of life.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was ready to send its foreign and defence ministers to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, for talks, but made clear that Russia still expects the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine.
Prior to the deadly onslaught in Ukraine, Putin had demanded that Ukraine abandon its aspirations of joining NATO, give up all weapons, and also recognize Crimea, annexed in 2014, as part of Russia. The bullish demands of the world tyrant is gradually bringing Ukraine to its knees.
Accusing NATO and Europe of abandoning his country and leaving them to defend themselves, Zelensky said in his speech, warning that the sanctions by Western allies were not enough. He urged European governments to do more, from withdrawing ambassadors to imposing an oil embargo and airspace closures
Earlier, Zelensky told the Ukranian army, ”you are all that we have” as he blamed Europe for not doing enough in its support for Ukraine.
He said the Russian attack in Ukraine was like a repeat of the Second World War and called on European citizens to protest to force their governments to act more quickly and forcefully.
Mr Zelenskyy said tougher sanctions need to be imposed on Moscow as his troops battled Russian forces closing in on the capital. He said ongoing Russian aggression showed that the current measures were not enough.
He also suggested tougher sanctions, including banning Russians from entering the European Union, cutting Moscow off from the SWIFT global payments system and an oil embargo.
War Against Europe
“The invasion of Russia into Ukraine is not just an invasion, it’s the beginning of the war against Europe,” Mr Zelenskyy said. “Against the unity of Europe. Against basic human rights in Europe. Against all rules of coexistence on the continent. Against the fact that European states refuse to divide borders by force.”
“What are you going to do about it?” he asked in a televised address. “How are you going to defend yourselves if you are so slow helping us in Ukraine?”
He said Europe “has enough strength to stop this aggression”.
Boris Johnson said the UK will introduce sanctions against Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “imminently”.
While the prime minister gave no details about the move, he said “the world must make certain President and said he was also considering imposing measures against Mr Putin and Mr Lavrov.
Mr Johnson said the UK stood ready for any request from Nato to go further with military support, adding there could be no normalisation of relations with Russia after this act, adding that it was “vital” the alliance was strengthened now.
The prime minister also urged leaders to take “immediate action” on removing Russia from the Swift international banking system to “inflict maximum pain on President Putin and his regime” – a measure some allies have so far resisted.
The head of MI6 has said Russia’s attack on Ukraine was a “long planned, unprovoked, cruel aggression”.
Richard Moore, known in Whitehall as C, tweeted that “US and UK intelligence communities uncovered Putin’s plans for Ukraine”.
He said: “We exposed his attempts to engineer ‘false flag’, fake attacks to justify his invasion. We revealed his plans to assassinate Ukrainian leaders and senior officials.
The build up to the invasion of Ukraine was marked by the deployment of “wiper” malware . A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which paralyses websites by bombarding them with spurious information requests, also hit Ukrainian government sites.