Russian forces said they had captured a Ukrainian port on Wednesday as Russian and Ukrainian troops battled for another urban centre and President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow wanted to “erase” his country.
As the conflict intensified further on the seventh day of the invasion, the Russian army said it had taken control of the Black Sea port of Kherson in southern Ukraine. Russian paratroopers also landed in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, triggering clashes in the streets, Ukrainian forces said.
After Washington branded Russian President Vladimir Putin a “dictator”, Ukraine’s leader said a strike on Tuesday on a television mast in the capital Kyiv demonstrated Russia’s threat to Ukrainian identity.
Five people were killed in the attack on the tower at Babi Yar, the site of a Nazi massacre in which over 33,000 people were killed — most of them Jews.
“They know nothing about our capital. About our history. But they have an order to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all,” Zelensky said in a video.
The 44-year-old, who is himself Jewish, urged Jewish people around the world to speak up.
“I am now addressing all the Jews of the world. Don’t you see what is happening? That is why it is very important that millions of Jews around the world not remain silent right now,” he said.
“Nazism is born in silence. So shout about killings of civilians. Shout about the murders of Ukrainians.”
