Canada has been one among Kyiv’s key allies because the Russian invasion.
Kyiv, Ukraine:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated Saturday {that a} counteroffensive was underway as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Kyiv and criticised Russia over flooding from the breached Kakhovka dam.
“Counteroffensive and defensive actions are happening in Ukraine: at which stage I cannot speak intimately,” Zelensky stated at a joint press convention in Kyiv with Trudeau.
Zelensky commented after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Kyiv’s long-expected counteroffensive was already failing.
Russia has reported thwarting Ukrainian assaults within the east and south.
“It is fascinating what Putin stated about our counteroffensive. It can be crucial that Russia all the time feels this: that they don’t have lengthy left, in my view,” Zelensky stated.
He added that he was in every day contact with navy commanders, together with armed forces chief Valery Zaluzhny, and “everyone seems to be optimistic now — inform that to Putin!”
Trudeau, 51, and Zelensky, 45, hugged one another and used one another’s first names because the Canadian chief made his second unannounced go to to Kyiv since full-scale conflict broke out in February final yr.
Canada, which hosts numerous Ukrainian expatriates, has been one among Kyiv’s key allies because the Russian invasion.
It has offered Ukraine with important navy assist, educated greater than 36,000 troopers and adopted sanctions towards Moscow.
– ‘Direct consequence’ –
Trudeau denounced Russia’s position within the destruction of the Russian-controlled Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine on Tuesday.
The flooding from the breached dam has pressured 1000’s to flee their properties and sparked fears of humanitarian and environmental disasters.
Ukraine accuses Russia of blowing up the dam, whereas Moscow says Kyiv fired on it.
In his every day handle, Zelenksy condemned the “shameful indifference” from the worldwide group to the fallout of the dam’s destruction, together with the failure to “kind and ship a rescue mission to the occupied territory” or “come out with clear and powerful statements condemning this newest Russian conflict crime.”
He urged worldwide organisations to come back to the help of these in Russian-occupied territories.
Pledging 10 million Canadian {dollars} (US $7.5 million) in new funding for flood reduction, Trudeau stated the dam’s destruction was the “direct consequence” of Russia’s invasion.
“There’s completely little doubt in our minds that the destruction of the dam was a direct consequence of Russia’s choice to invade a peaceable neighbour,” Trudeau stated, including Russia “will probably be held to account” for its actions in Ukraine.
– Pilot coaching –
The Canadian chief stated he would supply 500 million Canadian {dollars} in new funding for navy help to Ukraine.
He additionally pledged Canada can be a part of the multinational efforts to coach Ukraine’s fighter pilots.
Earlier within the day Trudeau positioned flowers by a wall of remembrance displaying the faces of troopers killed in fight whereas a navy orchestra performed.
He additionally visited an open-air exhibition that includes destroyed Russian navy automobiles.
Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Oleksandr Polishchuk handed Trudeau a field that he stated held shrapnel from a rocket that fell on the Black Sea port metropolis of Odesa.
He stated the reward was meant to remind Trudeau of Ukraine’s affected by Russian strikes.
– Iran should ‘finish help’ for Russia –
Three folks have been killed early Saturday in a fireplace sparked by particles from shot-down Russian drones within the Odesa area.
French President Emmanuel Macron urged his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi to “instantly finish” Tehran’s help for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which includes supplying Moscow with assault drones, the Elysee stated.
Macron in a phone name underlined the intense “safety and humanitarian penalties” of Iran’s drone deliveries “and urged Tehran to instantly finish the help it thus offers to Russia’s conflict of aggression towards Ukraine”, stated an announcement.
The decision got here a day after White Home nationwide safety spokesman John Kirby stated Russia was receiving supplies from Iran to construct a drone manufacturing facility on its territory that “may very well be absolutely operational early subsequent yr”.
The USA has stated that Russia has acquired a whole bunch of Iranian assault drones to assault Kyiv and “terrorise” Ukrainians, a cost denied by Tehran.
In response to US knowledge, the drones are inbuilt Iran, shipped throughout the Caspian Sea “after which used operationally by Russian forces towards Ukraine”, Kirby stated.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)