Volodymyr Zelensky has urged the West to impose travel restrictions on all Russians in reaction to Vladimir Putin’s heinous invasion of Ukraine.
In an effort to further punish the Kremlin for its brutality, the beleaguered president pleaded with international leaders to forbid any residents of the invading country from entering their countries.
The most crucial sanctions, he told the Washington Post, “are to block the borders because the Russians are stealing someone else’s territory.”
He continued by saying that until they alter their mentality, Russians should be made to “live in their own universe.”
The head of Ukraine wants a complete ban on the purchase of Russian energy and a year-long closure of the West’s borders to Russian nationals.
He has advocated for tougher punitive actions against Putin throughout the conflict, claiming that the present sanctions are insufficient.
While there is a blanket prohibition on Russian airlines flying over much of Europe and the US, it does not apply to travel by Russian people.
Sanna Marin, the prime minister of Finland, demanded yesterday that Russian tourists be denied tourist visas.
Those who are fleeing the nation exactly because they disagree with Putin’s government, according to others, would undoubtedly be impacted if entrance was denied to Russians.
Zelensky, though, said, “Whichever sort of Russian… make them go to Russia.
‘Then they’ll understand. They will assert that we are unrelated to this conflict.
You can’t hold the whole populace accountable, can you? It can.
The people chose this government, and they’re not opposing it, yelling at it, or disagreeing with it.
Russian bombardment in the previous 24 hours has resulted in at least three Ukrainian civilian deaths and 23 additional injuries, including an incident not far from a Russian-occupied nuclear power facility.
Over 120 missiles were launched towards the southern town of Nikopol by Putin’s soldiers using Grad multiple rocket launchers; Nikopol is located across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
According to him, a number of residential complexes and industrial facilities were hurt.
In recent days, Russia and Ukraine traded accusations of bombarding the biggest nuclear facility in Europe and raising the danger of a nuclear disaster.
Zelensky brought up the 1986 catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine, which at the time was a Soviet republic, in his weekly video broadcast.
He demanded more penalties for Russia for “creating the prospect” of yet another nuclear catastrophe.
Zelenskyy said, “We are aggressively educating people throughout the globe about Russian nuclear blackmail, about the bombing and mining of the Zaporizhzhia NPP facilities.
“Russia will not listen to concerns and comments…
The Zaporizhzhia NPP has six power units, while the Chernobyl accident was caused by an explosion in one reactor.
The Kremlin said that Ukraine’s military was targeting the facility on Monday and pleaded with the West to use force to halt Kyiv’s actions.
After last week’s bombardment, an official deployed by Russia in the partly controlled Zaporizhzhia area stated the plant’s air defence system will be strengthened.
According to Evgeny Balitsky, the leader of the Kremlin-backed government, the plant’s damaged blocks and power lines were repaired on Tuesday, according to Russian state television.
Balitsky said that “the facility is running properly, albeit, of course, with an elevated degree of security.”
Firepower is increasingly being directed at southern Ukraine as a result of a Ukrainian counteroffensive and Russian defensive operations in seized territories.
The Russian military concentrated its efforts on attempting to take control of the whole of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area after failing to take the country’s capital, Kyiv, early in the conflict.
Eight years of conflict between pro-Moscow separatists and Russian military in the area have given them authority over portions of the land as self-declared republics.
Russian soldiers have advanced just approximately 6 kilometres into the village of Bakhmut during the last month, according to the British Defense Ministry on Tuesday.
Russia’s troops “have not advanced more than 3 kilometres over this 30-day period in other Donbas areas where it was trying to break through; very definitely much less than expected,” the U.K. ministry stated.
The ministry issued a warning, noting that despite the need for focus in southern Ukraine, Russia has continued to target Ukrainian positions in the east.
Russian forces are attempting to accelerate their advance in a number of regions, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine.
The second-largest city in the nation, Kharkiv, was shelled by Russia four times in the last 24 hours, resulting in some major infrastructure being destroyed.