Dear Ukrainians!
Today, practically all day and night, Russia is hitting Ukraine with "shaheeds". There was a massive strike at night: both missiles and "shaheeds". All day long - new waves of drones. More than 550 drones of different types in one day, a significant number - "shaheeds". The geography of this strike is very wide. And although most of the drones were shot down - more than 500 to be exact - there are still, unfortunately, hits - in Lviv, Frankivsk, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, also in Khmelnytskyi region, Rivne region, Kharkiv region, Dnipro region. Unfortunately, there are fatalities. My condolences to the relatives and friends. As of now, more than 40 victims are known, and among them - five children. Everyone is being provided with the necessary assistance. Among the Russian targets, energy is the main one, they continue their operation to break Ukraine and our energy system. Unfortunately, there are also hits on ordinary buildings – the centers of our cities, the historical center of Lviv, were attacked. There was a fire in the buildings of the St. Andrew's Church in Lviv. The history of this church dates back to the beginning of the 17th century. Iranian "shaheeds", modernized by Russia, are hitting a church in Lviv – this is an absolute perversion, and only people like Putin can like it. A maternity hospital was damaged in Frankivsk.
The scale of this attack clearly shows that Russia has no intention of actually ending this war. And if we take into account that Russia is also helping the Iranian regime strike across the region, the conclusion is quite obvious: without additional and strong pressure on Russia, without tangible Russian losses, they there, in Moscow, will not have the desire to move away from the war, to somehow get used to peace again. It is precisely this pressure that is clearly lacking now. On the contrary, there are signals that encourage Russia - encouraging it to continue what it has been doing for years, only increasing its aggressiveness. The fact that sanctions against Russia have been partially eased plays into Russia's interest in continuing to fight. The Russians will earn at least $2 billion in these weeks alone from the easing of sanctions. This is dangerous for everyone. Precisely as a signal. As a direction of the path. The "shaheed" should definitely not be the main symbol of what is happening here, in Europe, in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world. People want a normal life. And the task of leaders is to facilitate this. I am grateful to every leader, every country, all parliamentarians and public figures in our partner countries who will not remain silent about what is happening and who will continue to help us put pressure on Russia for real peace. I want to thank everyone who is developing new and effective formats of international coordination in order to jointly defend ourselves and to really resist both missile and drone attacks. There must be more control, more coordination, so that Russia and the Iranian regime and other similar entities cannot easily gain access to microelectronics and other components that are needed to produce weapons. There must be more production in Europe and other parts of the world, more interaction for modern and reliable air defense. This is exactly how we work with our partners and we are preparing the appropriate agreements. War technologies have reached such a level that air defense must be multi-component. And to be truly strong, air defense must be shared – when not one person alone, but everyone together takes care of protecting the sky. And I thank everyone who continues to work on diplomacy and in efforts to find worthy and coordinated responses to every challenge.
Today there was a report from our negotiating team, which returned from the United States of America. Unfortunately, there is no real movement yet - Russia does not want a movement towards peace. But it is important that we in Ukraine, the United States, the Europeans, and other global actors do everything possible, everything necessary, so that the Russians become interested in diplomacy - realistically and honestly, and not just to make more money from oil and gain more time for the next attacks and aggressions. Peace must be reliable - this is our goal, and it will be. And we will respond to attacks. Definitely.
Glory to Ukraine!