Nov. 8 (UPI) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday called for Moscow to compensate his country for losses during Russia’s invasion as part of peace talk conditions.
Zelensky made the comments at the United Nations Climate Change Conference via video link, saying that the compensation was in line with the U.N. Charter over past conflicts. He called for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” as far as controlling its internationally recognized borders and punishing alleged war criminals.
Earlier, Zelensky said he would only be interested in peace talks with Moscow if it left Ukraine, including Crimea, which Russia forcibly annexed in 2014, and the Donbas region, where the Kremlin has aggressively supported an insurgency.
In Moscow-occupied Kherson, Russian authorities said Tuesday that electrical power has been restored and that three transmission lines were severely damaged the day before, cutting off power to the entire city.
Kirill Stremousov, the Kremlin-installed leader of the region blamed Kyiv for attacks on water and electrical supplies, but its “mass evacuation” of citizens there has been “completed.”
“Electricity and communication in Kherson restored,” Stremousov said. “Preparations for the heating season continue. The mass evacuation of residents of the right-bank part of the Kherson region has been completed. Residents of Kherson can privately evacuate freely.
“Evacuation is not compulsory. Already in the coming days in Kherson, expect a denouement of events. We are ready for any decisions, even the most difficult ones. The main priority of Russia is the preservation and saving of the lives of the inhabitants of the Kherson region.”
Past damage to civilian infrastructure by Russia has forced Ukraine’s national electrical utility Ukrenergo, to implement energy restrictions because of a cold snap.
“Additional restrictions on consumption are necessary because due to the cold snap, electricity consumption is increasing, which leads to an increase in the load on equipment and a shortage of electricity in the power system,” Ukrenergo said.
The emergency power cuts have been a daily occurrence for weeks in the country’s capital of Kyiv along with the Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions.
“Repair and restoration works continue around the clock,” Ukrenergo said. “Please do not forget about the need to consume electricity sparingly. This will allow [us] to apply fewer restrictions aimed at preventing outages, and will also allow power engineers to focus on repairs of damaged facilities.”
The unrecognized Kremlin-supported Donetsk People’s Republic said on Tuesday that the Ukrainian military has suffered 50 casualties during the fighting in the Donbas over the past day. It said it also destroyed 20 items of Ukrainian military hardware, including tanks, armor, artillery guns and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Ukrainian Donetsk Oblast Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said Russian attacks there killed three civilians in Bakhmut and Krasnohorivka and injured seven civilians in other settlements. Russia has attacked for Bakhmut for weeks in hopes to capture the eastern city and its main transportation road.
In the end, Russia will leave all occupied Ukrainian territory. Putin is killing Russians en masse every day he chooses to ignore or fails to grasp this reality. Russia must stop Putin to save itself.