Ukraine is prepared to discuss adopting a neutral status as part of a peace deal with Russia but such a pact would have to be guaranteed by third parties and put to a referendum, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in remarks aired on Sunday.
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The Ukrainian president also accused the West of cowardice, making an exasperated plea for fighter jets and tanks to help defend his country from Russia's invading troops.
Speaking after US President Joe Biden said in a lacerating speech that Russian President Vladimir Putin could not stay in power – words the White House immediately sought to downplay – Zelenskyy lashed out at the West's "ping-pong about who and how should hand over jets" and other weapons while Russian missile attacks kill and trap civilians.
Ukraine says that to defeat Russia, the West must provide fighter jets and not just missiles and other military equipment. A proposal to transfer Polish planes to Ukraine via the United States was scrapped amid NATO concerns about being drawn into direct fighting.
In his pointed remarks, Zelenskyy accused Western governments of being "afraid to prevent this tragedy. Afraid to simply make a decision."
Another top Ukrainian official, meanwhile, said Russia was trying to split the nation in two, like North and South Korea, while Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said Monday that Russia's war on Ukraine has so far cost the country $564.9 billion in terms of damage to infrastructure, lost economic growth and other factors.
In an online post, she said the fighting had damaged or destroyed 8,000 km (4,970 miles) of roads and 10 million square meters of housing.
Zelenskyy was speaking to Russian journalists in a 90-minute video call, an interview that Moscow authorities had preemptively warned Russian media to refrain from reporting. Zelenskyy spoke in Russian throughout, as he has done in previous speeches when targeting a Russian audience.
Zelenskyy said Russia's invasion had caused the destruction of Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine, with damage worse than the Russian wars in Chechnya.
"Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it. This is the most important point," Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine refused to discuss certain other Russian demands, such as the demilitarization of the country.
Speaking more than a month after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Zelenskyy said no peace deal would be possible without a ceasefire and troop withdrawals.
He ruled out trying to recapture all Russian-held territory by force, saying it would lead to a third world war, and said he wanted to reach a "compromise" over the eastern Donbas region, held by Russian-backed forces since 2014.
Zelenskyy focused on the fate of the eastern port city of Mariupol, under siege for weeks. Once a city of 400,000 people, it has undergone prolonged Russian bombardment.
"I've talked to the defenders of Mariupol today. I'm in constant contact with them. Their determination, heroism and firmness are astonishing," Zelenskyy said in a video address, referring to the besieged southern city that has suffered some of the war's greatest deprivations and horrors. "If only those who have been thinking for 31 days on how to hand over dozens of jets and tanks had 1% of their courage."
"All entries and exits from the city of Mariupol are blocked," Zelenskyy added. "The port is mined. A humanitarian catastrophe inside the city is unequivocal, because it is impossible to go there with food, medicine and water," he said.
"I don't even know who the Russian army has ever treated like this," he said, adding that, compared to Russian wars in Chechnya, the volume of destruction "cannot be compared."
Russia has denied targeting civilians in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine have traded blame for a failure to open humanitarian corridors.
Zelenskyy pushed back against allegations from Moscow that Ukraine had curbed the rights of Russian speakers, saying it was Russia's invasion that wiped Russian-speaking cities "off the face of the earth."
He also dismissed as "a joke" allegations made by Russia that Ukraine had nuclear or chemical weapons.
Russian prosecutors said a legal opinion would be made on the statements made in the interview and on the legality of publishing the interview.
Russia-based outlets appeared to comply with the ban although the interview was published abroad.
Commenting afterward, Zelenskyy said Russia destroyed the freedom of speech in its own country.
"The Russian censorship agency came out with a threat," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. "It would be ridiculous if it weren't so tragic," he said, according to the Ukrainian news agency RBK Ukraina.
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, accused Russia of seeking to split Ukraine in two, making the comparison to North and South Korea.
"The occupiers will try to pull the occupied territories into a single quasi-state structure and pit it against independent Ukraine," Budanov said in a statement released by the Defense Ministry. He predicted that guerrilla warfare by Ukrainians would derail such plans.
A Ukrainian delegate in talks with Russia on ending the war, Davyd Arakhamia, said in a Facebook post the countries would meet in Turkey beginning Monday. However, the Russians then announced the talks would start Tuesday. The sides have met previously with no deal reached.
Ukraine's priorities at the talks will be "sovereignty and territorial integrity," Zelenskyy told his nation in his nightly address.
"We are looking for peace, really, without delay," he said. "There is an opportunity and a need for a face-to-face meeting in Turkey."
Zelenskyy also signed a law that bans reporting on troop and equipment movements that haven't been announced or approved by the military. Journalists who violate the law could face three to eight years in prison. The law does not differentiate between Ukrainian and foreign reporters.
Russia confirmed it used air-launched cruise missiles to hit a fuel depot and a defense plant in Lviv, near the Polish border. Another strike with sea-launched missiles destroyed a depot in Plesetske just west of Kyiv, where Ukraine stored air defense missiles, said Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry.
Russia's back-to-back airstrikes shook the city that has become a haven for an estimated 200,000 people who have fled bombarded towns and cities. Lviv, which has largely been spared bombardment, also has been a waystation for most of the 3.8 million refugees who have left Ukraine since Russia invaded.
In Kharkiv, Ukrainian firefighters used axes and chainsaws to dig through concrete and other debris Sunday searching for victims of a Russian military strike on the regional administration building. One body was found Saturday, a firefighter said. At least six people died in the March 1 attack – the first time Russian forces hit the center of Kharkiv, once home to 1.5 million people.
On Sunday night, a rocket attack hit an oil base in the far northwestern region of Volyn.
Along with the millions of people who have fled Ukraine, the invasion has driven more than 10 million people from their homes, almost one-quarter of Ukraine's population. Thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed.
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Zelenskyy also said Sunday in the interview with the Russian journalists that he speaks regularly with his troops and their families and had offered his troops in Mariupol the option of leaving the city.
"They said, 'We can't. There are wounded people, we will not leave the wounded,'" Zelenskyy said. "Moreover, they said, 'We will not leave the dead.'"
Zelenskyy said corpses of Ukrainians and Russians alike lie uncollected on Mariupol's roads and sidewalks.
Meanwhile, citing concerns regarding possible food shortages due to the Ukraine crisis, Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli last week instructed that cargo ships carrying grain and fodder be given priority in unloading at the country's ports for the coming month.
"We face challenges to our food security at the moment due to the worrying developments in Ukraine," Michaeli said in a statement.
"The State of Israel must protect its food security by strengthening our domestic agriculture. Taking steps to get the grain and fodder that Israeli agriculture relies on into the country quickly will ensure that we maintain Israeli food security despite the changes around the world," she said.
