Russia’s invasion of Ukraine targets all of Europe and ending Moscow’s aggression is essential for the security of all democracies, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said as Russian forces prepared for battle in the east of his country.
Meanwhile, a mass grave containing dozens of Ukrainian bodies was found Saturday in Buzova, a village west of Kyiv, a local official says.
Addressing the “free people of a brave country,” Zelenskyy said in a late night video message to Ukrainians that Russia’s war aim “was not intended to be limited to Ukraine alone” and the “entire European project is a target.”
“That is why it is not just the moral duty of all democracies, all the forces of Europe, to support Ukraine’s desire for peace,” he said. ”This is, in fact, a strategy of defense for every civilized state.”
His address came as civilians continued to flee eastern parts of the country before an expected onslaught and emergency workers searched for survivors in towns north of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, that are no longer occupied by Russian forces.
Russia has pulled its troops from the northern part of the country and refocused on the eastern Donbass region, where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years and controlled some territory before the war, now in its 46th day.
Meanwhile, Taras Didych, the local leader, told Ukrainian TV that the bodies were found in a pit near a petrol station, in Buzova, a village west of Kyiv.
Bodies had also been found in a dozen shelled cars on the main road from the cities of Kyiv to Zhytomyr, which goes through Buzova, he said.
Western military analysts said an arc of territory in eastern Ukraine was under assault, from Kharkiv – Ukraine’s second-largest city – in the north to Kherson in the south. Newly released Maxar Technologies satellite imagery collected Friday showed an 8-mile (13-kilometer) convoy of military vehicles headed south to the Donbass through the town of Velykyi Burluk. -Agencies
