The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-23)

A16 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, MAY 23 , 2022

BY FENIT NIRAPPIL,

JULIAN DUPLAIN,

ANNABELLE TIMSIT

AND PAULINA VILLEGAS

Ukrainian President Volod-
ymyr Zelensky said the path to
ending the war with Russia would
require diplomacy and an inter-
national agreement with security
guarantees from other countries
after any military win.
“Victory will be bloody,” he said
in a Ukrainian television inter-
view broadcast Saturday, and “the
end will certainly be in diploma-
cy.”
But he and other leaders
stressed that Russia shouldn’t
keep control of territory it has
seized during hostilities. Al-
though Russian forces failed to
take the capital, Kyiv, and the
northeastern city of Kharkiv, they
have captured the cities of Kher-
son and Mariupol in southern and
southeastern Ukraine.
Bloody fighting continues in
eastern Ukraine, which the Unit-
ed States believes is part of Mos-
cow’s strategy to annex broad
swaths of the country and install
leaders loyal to Russia in a move
echoing the 2014 annexation of
Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
“We want everything returned,
and Russia doesn’t want to return
anything,” Zelensky said in the
interview. “And this is what it will
be in the end.”
His comments come as the Rus-
sian invasion falters and military
leaders are overhauling their
strategy by firing commanders
and increasingly relying on artil-
lery and long-range weapons after
losing thousands of troops.
Even as analysts and experts
view Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s long-term objectives as
unsustainable, the invasion con-
tinues to exact a toll on Ukraine,
particularly in the eastern Don-
bas and Luhansk regions, where
Russian troops are concentrated.
Zelensky said Sunday that as
many as 100 soldiers a day are
killed in the hard-hit east.
The southern port city of
Severodonetsk — one of the last
major cities in eastern Luhansk
province still in Kyiv’s control —
has emerged as the latest flash
point in hostilities.
Regional authorities urged the
thousands remaining in the once
100,000-person city to flee as

heavy shelling continues and af-

ter Russian forces on Saturday

destroyed a bridge used for evacu-

ations and aid deliveries.

Serhiy Haidai, governor of the

Luhansk region, said that “if they

destroy one more bridge, then the

city will be fully cut off, unfortu-

nately.”

Lyudmila Denisova, Ukraine’s

human rights ombudswoman,

warned in a post on the Telegram

messaging app that Severodo-

netsk is becoming “a new Mari-

upol” — another southern port

city now in ruins with civilians cut

off from basic necessities after

months of bombardment.

Russia contends that Mariupol

is entirely under its control after

Ukraine last week ended its de-

fense of a steel plant where civil-

ians and fighters holed up for

weeks.

The mayor of Mariupol, where

the plant is located, has warned

that the city is “on the verge of an

outbreak of infectious diseases”

because of the war.

Many of the city’s residents

have no access to water or func-

tioning sewage systems, Vadym

Boychenko said in a message post-

ed Saturday on Telegram, while

summer rains are likely to spread

diseases from hastily dug shallow

graves into water supplies.

Zelensky expressed hope about

the fate of the hundreds of Ukrai-

nian forces at the plant, bolstering

the prospect of future talks with

Russia.

“I said during the bombard-

ment that if they destroy the peo-

ple in Azovstal, there will never be

any discussions with Russia. To-

day we saw that they found a way

to let these people live,” Zelensky

said in the interview that aired

Saturday.

“Time changes things,” he add-

ed. “There are various situations.

It all depends on the time.”

In a surprise visit, Polish Presi-

dent Andrzej Duda on Sunday

addressed the Ukrainian parlia-

ment in Kyiv, the first in-person

appearance by a foreign leader

since the war began. He reiterated

Poland’s support for Ukraine and

called on Russia to withdraw.

“Only Ukraine has the right to

decide its future,” Duda said, ac-

cording to a translation. “The in-

ternational community must de-

mand that Russia end its aggres-

sion and leave Ukraine complete-

ly.”

Zelensky vowed to grant more

rights to Polish citizens, after a

new law in Poland granted rights

to millions of Ukrainian citizens

who have sought refuge in Poland

since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.

“This is an unprecedented deci-

sion, according to which our citi-

zens, who have been forced to flee

to Poland due to the Russian ag-

gression, will be granted almost

the same rights and opportunities

as Polish citizens. Legal residence,

employment, education, health

care and social benefits,” Zelensky

said, according to a text of the

speech.

Meanwhile, the United States is

ramping up its support for

Ukraine after President Biden on

Saturday signed a $40 billion

package to provide new military

and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Zelensky said more military aid

to Ukraine will help the country

reopen its ports and ease pressure

on worldwide food prices after

fighting halted exports of grain

and other agricultural products.

Military and State Department

officials are considering sending

special force troops to guard a

newly reopened embassy in Kyiv,

the Wall Street Journal reported

Sunday.

A U.S. official confirmed the

discussions but stressed the idea

is only preliminary.

“We are in close touch with our

colleagues at the State Depart-

ment about potential security re-

quirements now that they have

resumed operations at the embas-

sy in Kyiv, but no decisions have

been made — and no specific

proposals have been debated — at

senior levels of the department

about the return of U.S. military

members to Ukraine for that or

any other purpose,” Pentagon

spokesman John Kirby said.

A delegation of U.S. diplomats

will be in The Hague from Sunday

until Wednesday for talks with

allies “regarding our responses to

atrocities committed in Ukraine”

and in other conflicts, and on

efforts to “bring the perpetrators

of atrocities to justice,” the State

Department said in a news re-

lease.

Ukrainian authorities have put

three captured Russian soldiers

on trial for war crimes, and the

Biden administration is support-

ing steps by the Ukrainian pros-

ecutor general to investigate Rus-

sia’s actions in the war.

Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zel-

enska, in a rare joint appearance

with her husband during a prere-

corded television interview, de-

tailed the invasion’s toll on her

family. She said she has barely

seen her husband since the war

began and joked that the inter-

view amounted to “a date” on TV.

“Our family was torn apart, as

every other Ukrainian family,”

Zelenska said, later pushing back

on an interviewer who suggested

her husband was taken away from

her.

“Nobody takes my husband

away from me, not even the war,”

Zelenska replied.

Christine Armario, John Hudson,

Annabelle Chapman, Victoria Bisset

and Bryan Pietsch contributed to this

report.

A grasp at diplomacy as fighting grinds on in Ukraine

ARIS MESSINIS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

A woman walks by a destroyed apartment building in Bakhmut, Ukraine. The invasion by Russia continues to exact a toll on the c ountry,

particularly in the eastern Donbas and Luhansk regions where Russian troops are concentrated.

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