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Zelenskyy: Putin has Not Broken Ukraine02/24 06:05
More than a dozen senior European officials were in the Ukrainian capital on
Tuesday in a show of support on the fourth anniversary of Russia's all-out
invasion of Ukraine -- a grim milestone in a war that has killed tens of
thousands of people and put European leaders on edge about the scale of
Moscow's ambitions on the continent.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) -- More than a dozen senior European officials were in
the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday in a show of support on the fourth anniversary
of Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine -- a grim milestone in a war that has
killed tens of thousands of people and put European leaders on edge about the
scale of Moscow's ambitions on the continent.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was defiant despite the devastating
toll -- insisting that Russia has not "broken Ukrainians" nor triumphed in the
war.
Zelenskyy said his country has withstood the onslaught by Russia's bigger
and better equipped army, which over the past year of fighting captured just
0.79% of Ukraine's territory, according to the Institute for the Study of War,
a Washington-based think tank.
"Looking back at the beginning of the invasion and reflecting on today, we
have every right to say: we have defended our independence, we have not lost
our statehood," Zelenskyy said on social media, adding that Russian President
Vladimir Putin has "not achieved his goals."
"He has not broken Ukrainians; he has not won this war," Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy urges Trump to visit
However, as the corrosive war of attrition enters its fifth year, a U.S.-led
diplomatic push to end Europe's biggest armed conflict since World War II
appears no closer to finding compromises that might make a peace deal possible.
Negotiations are stuck on what happens to the Donbas, eastern Ukraine's
industrial heartland which Russian forces mostly occupy but have failed to
seize completely, and the terms of a postwar security arrangement that Kyiv is
demanding to deter any future Russian invasion.
In a speech at a makeshift memorial in Kyiv's central square, where
thousands of small flags and portraits show photos of fallen soldiers,
Zelenskyy said he wanted U.S. President Donald Trump to visit and witness for
himself Ukrainian suffering.
"Only then can one truly understand what this war is really about,"
Zelenskyy said.
Trump, who says he wants the fighting to stop, has repeatedly changed his
tone toward Putin and Zelenskyy over the past year.
The war in Europe's somber numbers
The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides could reach
2 million by spring, with Russia sustaining the largest number of troop deaths
for any major power in any conflict since World War II, a report last month
from the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated.
European leaders see their countries' own security at stake in Ukraine amid
concerns about Putin's wider goals and has demanded its leaders be consulted in
the ongoing U.S.-brokered talks.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wrote on X that "for four years, every day
and every night has been a nightmare for the Ukrainians -- and not just for
them, but for us all. Because war is back in Europe."
"We will only end it by being strong together, because the fate of Ukraine
is our fate," he added.
Putin's dangerous gamble
Putin believes that time is on the side of his bigger army, Western
officials and analysts say -- and that Western support will trail off and that
Ukraine's military resistance will eventually crumble.
But French President Emmanuel Macron described the war was "a triple failure
for Russia: military, economic, and strategic."
The war "has strengthened NATO--the very expansion Russia sought to
prevent--galvanized Europeans it hoped to weaken, and laid bare the fragility
of an imperialism from another age," Macron said on X.
The war has brought widespread hardship for Ukrainian civilians. Russia's
aerial attacks have devastated families and denied civilians power and running
water.
It has drawn in countries far beyond Ukraine, giving the conflict a global
dimension, and threatened to worsen shortages, hunger and political instability
in developing countries.
While NATO countries have come to Ukraine's aid, Russia has been helped by
North Korea, which has sent thousands of troops and artillery shells; Iran,
which has provided drone technology; and China, which the United States and
analysts say has provided machine tools and chips.
A war with global dimensions
Among the European officials visiting Kyiv on Tuesday were the President of
the European Council, Antonio Costa, the President of the European Commission
Ursula von der Leyen and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, as well as seven
prime ministers and four foreign ministers.
The only American listed among the official guests in Kyiv ceremonies was
Lt. Gen. Curtis Buzzard, a U.S. officer who represents NATO in Ukraine.
With Ukraine unable to sustain its fight against Russia without foreign
help, NATO countries are now providing military help, purchasing American
weapons after the Trump administration broke with earlier Washington policy and
stopped giving arms to Kyiv.
The European Union has also sent financial aid, but has sometimes met with
reluctance from members Hungary and Slovakia.
British Armed Forces Minister Al Carns said Russia's war on Ukraine was "the
most defining conflict" in decades.
"I don't think anyone of us would be able to guess (when the war started)
the scale and size of what has taken place," he said.
The war has brought a "revolution in military affairs," especially through
the rapid development of drone technology by both sides, according to Carns.
Drones now account for the vast majority of battlefield casualties, he said.
The United Kingdom on Tuesday announced a new package of military and
humanitarian support for Ukraine, including sending teams of British military
medics conducting medical mentoring inside Ukraine, drawing on battlefield
experience from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The cost of rebuilding war-battered Ukraine would amount to almost $588
billion over the next decade, according to World Bank, the European Commission,
the United Nations and the Ukrainian government.
That is nearly three times the estimated nominal GDP of Ukraine for last
year, they said in a report Monday.
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