President Volodymyr Zelensky again urged the West to enforce a no-fly zone in the country after learning that eight Russian rockets struck the west-central city of Vinnytsia, “completely destroying its airport,” he said in a video published on Facebook.
Vinnytsia has a population of nearly 400,000 and is located about 200 kilometers southwest of Kyiv.
“Russia continues to destroy our infrastructure,” Ukraine’s second war-time president added on March 6.
Speaking in an angry tone, Zelensky pleaded for the skies above Ukraine “to be closed for Russian rockets, for Russian combat aviation, for all these terrorists.”
He implored for “humanitarian airspace” to be created over Ukraine.
“We are people and it is your humanitarian obligation to protect us, to protect people. If you don’t do this or if you don’t even give us airplanes…then only one conclusion can be made and that is you also want us to die slowly,” Zelensky said.
Russia launched a fuller-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, attacking from Belarus, the occupied parts of the Donbas in the east and the occupied Crimean Peninsula in the south.
More than 1.5 million have fled the country, the UN Refugee Agency said.
Kyiv says Russia is deliberately targeting civilian areas and infrastructure with a relentless bombardment campaign, causing a humanitarian catastrophe.
Ukraine estimates that about 11,000 Russian military personnel have been killed since fighting escalated last month as part of a larger unprovoked war that Moscow has waged against Ukraine since early 2014.
Kyiv isn’t disclosing its military casualties.
