Even after the Ukraine war ends, Russia will continue to pose a threat to its neighbours unless the world works to “change the Regime” in Moscow, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday morning.
Russia’s leadership is mentally “stuck in another era” and rejects the “post World War Two” world order, warned President Zelensky as he called for regime change against Moscow to remove the threat permanently. Addressing an Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) conference remotely by a video link plagued with technical difficulties, when he could be heard the Ukrainian leader decried fresh overnight airstrikes by Russia and said: “Russia keeps launching such attacks, even when the whole world is calling on it to stop the war”.
Russia persists with the war because it doesn’t recognise “natural borders” and believes its own borders are “wherever it wants them to be”, Zelensky said, saying Moscow is “stuck in another era.
“They are mentally stuck in another century, a time of brutal violence, depredations, a total disregard for human rights and equality. We all know that such ideas and such times must never return to Europe and we all know how to protect ourselves from that, how to protect Europe from what Russia is bringing.”
Russia can be “pushed to stop this war” and “forced to recognise its real borders”, Zelensky continued, stating: “if the world doesn’t aim to change the regime in Russia, that means, even after the war ends, Moscow will still try to destabilise neighbouring countries. It will keep spending huge amounts of money, resources, maybe even lives to do so.”
European states have to act to “protect ourselves from this in the long term”, and through sanctions need to “fully block Russia’s war machine, cut off its arms industry, limit its energy profits”. Russian assets shouldn’t just be frozen, Zelensky said, but need to be confiscated outright and turned over.
Several children were wounded in Russian missile and drone strikes overnight, Kyiv said, and eight people including a six-year-old boy were killed after a large residential building took a direct hit.
Per Ukrainian state media, the Ukrainian Air Force shot down 288 Russian drones out of 317 detected, and three cruise missiles of eight launched. The five remaining missiles were “direct hits” and in some cases debris from downed drones caused damage on the ground.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the scale of the assault should push U.S. President Donald Trump to give up on giving President Putin 50 days to come to a deal. He said: “”It is probably time to reduce to zero all of the timeframes that had been given to Putin to demonstrate a constructive approach. President Trump has been very generous and very patient with Putin, trying to find a solution”.
Ukraine also launched air strikes on Russia overnight, Moscow state media claimed. The Russian air force said it destroyed 32 Ukrainian drones, leading to train delays after debris fell on the railway, damage to gas pipes in Volgograd, and a fire at a factory. Russia asserted there was no casualties.
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