President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has slammed NATO for not imposing no-fly zone over Ukraine.
“All the alliance could do today was pass on its allocated 50 tons of diesel for Ukraine. Probably so we can burn the Budapest Memorandum” he said, venting frustration, referring to the crucial post-Soviet security agreement.
Speaking from Kyiv, Zelensky said the West’s reluctance to intervene has given Russia “a green light” to continue bombarding towns and villages.
Nato has argued that a no-fly zone will result in confrontation with Moscow.
But Mr Zelensky said he disagrees that direct action could “provoke Russia’s direct aggression against Nato”.
In angry comments, he said the argument reflects the “self-hypnosis of those who are weak, under-confident inside” and that Western reservations indicated that “not everyone considers the struggle for freedom to be Europe’s number one goal”.
“All the people who will die starting from this day will also die because of you. Because of your weakness, because of your disunity,” a furious Mr Zelensky added.
On Friday, Nato’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, warned that the introduction of a no-fly zone could lead to a “full-fledged war in Europe involving many more countries and causing much more human suffering”.
