By Augustine Ehikioya
To dissuade Russia from its ongoing war on Ukraine, some leaders of Ukrainian Embassy in Nigeria on Wednesday called on world powers to tighten their sanctions against Russia.
Ukraine Defence attaché, Cololel Andrii Vasyliev and Chief Consular Officer, Bohdan Soltys, briefed journalists in Abuja. Security Watch Africa (SWA) was there.
Stressing that Ukraine will not fold its arms in the face of Russian invasion, they said 355,000 Ukrainians have returned home from outside the country to defend Ukraine.
Even though they thanked the world community for imposing a powerful package of economic sanctions against the Russian economy, they maintained that more actions are needed to be taken.
They said “The world’s leading countries must tighten sanctions against Russia so that it no longer has any chance of continuing this war. Sanctions are needed for Russia to think about how to end this war as soon as possible.”
Noting that March 24, will be exactly one month of the second wave of Russian war against Ukraine, they said the country has put up heroic resistance to the Russian invasion.
They said “Ukraine is grateful to the world community for its support, financial and military assistance in the war against Russia. Ukraine is also grateful to the Government of Nigeria for supporting on March 2, 2022 the resolution “Aggression against Ukraine”, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly by a majority of its members.
“The top State leadership of Ukraine will continue its active foreign policy in counteracting military aggression. Thus, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky holds daily talks with World and European leaders. Various formats of further cooperation are discussed. During these talks, Ukraine is asking Western partners to close the skies to Ukraine, or to provide appropriate modern weapons for self-defense against Russian aircraft and missiles.”
Shedding light on operational information an the war, they said “As for the situation at the front. The enemy continues full-scale armed aggression against our State. The tasks set by the criminal military-political leadership of Russia before the grouping of the occupying forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation remain unfulfilled.
“None of the Ukrainian regional centers is occupied. The advance of Russian troops into the depths of Ukraine has been halted, and Ukrainian troops are counterattacking in some areas.
“Due to the lack of success of the ground phase of the operation, the enemy continues active missile and bomb strikes on important military and civilian infrastructure using operational and tactical aircraft, high-precision missile weapons and indiscriminate ammunition.”
Russian military planes, they said, drop 500kg of bombs on civilian homes, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, maternity hospitals and churches.
“Some Ukrainian cities were completely destroyed by Russian aircraft. This is beyond brutality. This is proof that the genocide of Ukrainians is taking place.”
The main purpose of this tactic, they said, is to create an “artificial humanitarian catastrophe throughout Ukraine and use it in the negotiation process.”
According to them, Russia during the one month old hostilities, has completely lost some military units along with equipment.
They said Moscow is trying to involve the Belarusian Armed Forces in the war, and citizens of other countries that support Russia’s actions.
Russia, they noted, captured two nuclear power plants, Chernobyl and Zaporozhye, with the aim of creating a man-made disaster, “for which the occupiers will try to shift responsibility to Ukraine.”
They added “the Russian Federation has repeatedly made accusations against Ukraine of allegedly preparing a chemical attack against civilians. But everyone understands that there are no chemical weapons in Ukraine, but Russia has them and has experience of using them in Syria against the local population.
Speaking on the total combat losses Russia in the past one month, they said the “Kremlin no longer knows how to explain what is happening.
“After all, during these days they buried more soldiers in the regions of Russia than officially admitted their losses. Lies no longer help them, but the truth scares them. Russia’s military leadership is hiding its losses among the military.”
They also said Russia has continued to spread propaganda of false reports of Russophobia around the world to justify “Russia’s crimes against humanity in Ukraine.”
Giving examples of Russian information campaign, they quoted “There are attempts to destroy the Russian nation through the Russian language”, “Russia kills Ukrainians under the pretext of protecting the Russian-speaking population;” “West imposes Anglo-Saxon worldview on Russia to split”, “The world hates Russia, but buys energy from it”, “Russia has enough strength to put all its enemies in place”, “Russia is at war with the United States, not Ukraine.”
They disclosed that the Russian propaganda has launched a fake video about the murder of Russian-speaking youth in Germany.
The commentary to the video, they said, states that “a young man was brutally attacked by a group of Ukrainians in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia.”
But they explained that “the reality is that the German Police in the aforementioned federal state have no information about this crime. It is worth noting that this fake video was published by a German journalist who often visited occupied Donetsk. Experts believe that this fake is aimed at inciting ethnic hatred.
“The Russian military is preparing cynical provocations in the Black Sea.
“The administration of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine reports that the Russians are painting over the names and hull numbers of ships of the Black Sea Fleet. This is seen as preparing future provocations against foreign merchant ships to accuse Ukraine.
The fact is that since the beginning of the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine, the Russian military has attacked several foreign ships in the Black Sea.
“The purpose of these attacks is to stop shipping on sea routes to and from Ukrainian ports and to inflict economic losses on Ukraine,” they stated.
On the situation on the Western border of Ukraine, they said “Every day tens of thousands of people, including women and children, leave the territory of Ukraine, as men are forbidden to leave the territory of Ukraine.
“To cross the border with the EU, Ukrainians can choose checkpoints on the border with Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania or the Republic of Moldova.
“At the same time, tens of thousands of men return to Ukraine every day, ready to defend the country with weapons in their hands. In total, about 355,000 Ukrainians have returned to Ukraine since the beginning of the open armed aggression.
Speaking on the update on the situation in the social sphere, they said “By killing civilians, Russia continues to commit crimes against humanity as defined by the Statute of the International Military Tribunal and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, cynically disregarding all requirements of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.
“According to these norms, intentional attacks on civilians who are not directly involved in hostilities are equated to war crimes.
“As a result of Russia’s armed aggression in Ukraine, 115 children were killed and more than 140 were injured.
“Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights has been receiving complaints from Ukrainians about sexual crimes committed by the Russian military.” They added.