Russia-Ukraine war: Zelensky presses Israel for its Iron Dome missile defence system
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Israel to offer its assistance against Russia's invasion on Sunday, as his forces fought to keep control of the port city of Mariupol, local authorities said.
In the latest in a series of international appeals, Zelensky addressed the Israeli parliament by video link and questioned Israel's reluctance to sell its Iron Dome missile defence system to Ukraine.
"Everybody knows that your missile defence systems are the best... and that you can definitely help our people, save the lives of Ukrainians, of Ukrainian Jews," said Zelensky, who is of Jewish heritage.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has held numerous calls with both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to end the conflict.
Mariupol has suffered some of the heaviest bombardments since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February. Many of its 400,000 residents remain trapped in the city with little if any food, water and power.
Fighting continued inside the city on Sunday, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said, without elaborating.
The Russian governor of Sevastopol, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, said on Sunday that Post Captain Andrei Paliy, deputy commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, had been killed during fighting in Mariupol.
Capturing Mariupol would help Russian forces secure a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The city council said on its Telegram channel late on Saturday that several thousand residents had been "deported" to Russia over the past week. Russian news agencies said buses had carried hundreds of people Moscow calls refugees from Mariupol to Russia in recent days.
'Disturbing' and 'unconscionable'
Speaking to CNN, US ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield called the deportation accounts "disturbing" and "unconscionable" if true, but said Washington had not yet confirmed them.
Russian forces bombed an art school on Saturday in which 400 residents were sheltering, but the number of casualties was not yet known, Mariupol's council said.
Middle East Eye could not independently verify the claims.
'To do this to a peaceful city... is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come'
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
Russia denies targeting civilians. But Zelensky said the siege of Mariupol was a war crime.
"To do this to a peaceful city... is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come," he said late on Saturday.
Putin says Russia's "special operation" is aimed at disarming Ukraine and rooting out dangerous nationalists. Western nations call it an aggressive war of choice and have imposed punishing sanctions aimed at crippling Russia's economy.
Ukraine and its Western backers say Russian ground forces have made few advances in the last week, concentrating instead on artillery and missile strikes.
Zelensky's adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said there had been a relative lull over the past 24 hours, with "practically no rocket strikes on (Ukrainian) cities". He said front lines were "practically frozen".
The UN refugee agency said 10 million people had now been displaced across Ukraine, including some 3.4 million who have fled to neighbouring countries such as Poland. Officials in the region said they were reaching capacity to comfortably house refugees.
Meanwhile, the UN human rights office said at least 902 Ukrainian civilians had been killed as of midnight Saturday, though it says the real toll is probably much higher. Ukrainian prosecutors said 112 children had been killed.
Turkey and Israel mediate
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu of Turkey, which like Israel has tried to mediate, said Russia and Ukraine were getting closer to an agreement on "critical" issues.
Kyiv and Moscow reported some progress last week towards a political formula that would guarantee Ukraine's security, while keeping it outside Nato - a key Russian demand - though each side accused the other of dragging things out.
Russian forces have also taken heavy losses, and long columns of troops that bore down on the capital Kyiv have been halted in the suburbs. Ukraine's military said on Sunday Moscow's combat losses included 14,700 personnel and 476 tanks.
Russia last acknowledged on 2 March that nearly 500 of its soldiers had been killed. MEE has not been able to independently verify the death count.
In an interview with CNN, Zelensky reiterated that he was ready for talks with Putin and that the war would not end without negotiations.
"So, I think that we have to use any format, any chance in order to have the possibility of negotiating, the possibility of talking to Putin," he said. "But if these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third world war."
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