Zelensky says all Ukrainian power plants damaged, calls Putin ‘slave to war’

MUNICH: Every power plant in Ukraine has been damaged by Russian attacks, forcing millions to face heating cuts in the cold, President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Munich Security Conference Saturday, calling Russia’s Vladimir Putin a “slave to war.”

Zelensky addressed officials days before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s invasion, which has killed hundreds of thousands, decimated eastern Ukraine and forced millions to flee.

Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Moscow of deliberately freezing Ukraine’s population with the energy grid strikes.

“There is not a single power plant left in Ukraine that has not been damaged by Russian attacks,” Zelensky said. “Not one.”

“But we still generate electricity,” he added defiantly, praising the thousands of workers repairing the plants.

He called for speedier deliveries for Ukraine’s Western-supplied air defence systems, saying: “Sometimes we manage to deliver new missiles for our Patriots or NASAMS.”

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Zelensky compared Putin – who launched the war in February 2022 – to Adolf Hitler and said: “He may see himself as a tsar, but in reality he is a slave to war.”

He added that “no one in Ukraine believes (Putin) will let our people go.”

Russia and Ukraine will hold US-brokered talks in Geneva next week and Zelensky said Kyiv was doing “everything” to end the war.

Russia has demanded that Ukraine withdraw from its Donetsk region on top of recognition for the swathes of Ukraine that it occupies. 

Zelensky said that Ukraine was expected to make more concessions than Russia.

“The Americans often return to the topic of concessions, and too often those concessions are discussed in the context only of Ukraine,” he said.

Ukraine has said giving up its eastern territories is unacceptable. 

Zelensky accused Putin of wanting to “repeat” Munich 1938, when Czechoslovakia was divided, with the Second World War breaking out a year later.

‘Illusion’

“It would be an illusion to believe that this war can now be reliably ended by dividing Ukraine, just as it was an illusion to believe that sacrificing Czechoslovakia would save Europe from a great war,” Zelensky said.  

Zelensky said Kyiv was doing “everything” to end the war and said that viable security guarantees are the only way it can move towards a deal and prevent future invasions.

“With Russia, you cannot leave a single loophole Russians can use to start a war,” he said. 

The Geneva talks next week will come after two rounds of US-Russia-Ukraine negotiations in Abu Dhabi.

With no diplomatic breakthrough visible, the Ukrainian leader called on his Western allies to make faster political decisions.

“Weapons evolve faster than political decisions meant to stop them,” Zelensky said, saying that the Iranian-designed Shahed drones that Russia uses have become much deadlier as the war drags on.

Zelensky also repeated that Ukraine will hold elections once it receives security guarantees and a ceasefire is agreed.   

He then joked, to applause: “We can also give ceasefire to Russians if they will do elections in Russia.”

Putin has led Russia since New Year’s Eve 1999.