KYIV, Ukraine — The president of Ukraine is calling on Russian troops to surrender, 20 days into their deadly invasion. It’s a sentiment echoed by this Ukrainian Parliament member.
“We have dozens of thousands of people just in Kyiv in civic guard,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky. “And if they penetrate the city we will make hell for them, so they could not take Kyiv.”
Zelensky said in a video released overnight that if Russian troops surrender they will have a “chance to survive.”
He said they’d be treated “decently” by Ukrainian forces. This comes as Zelensky is scheduled to deliver a virtual address to Canada’s Parliament later this morning. He’ll address the U.S. Congress tomorrow.
The conflict that’s resulted in thousands of deaths and forced nearly three-million Ukrainians to flee that country.
Zelensky’s demand for surrender comes as more talks are expected to happen today between negotiators from Russia and Ukraine. They will pick up where they left off yesterday in continued efforts towards peace.
Zelensky says he was told the discussions so far had been “pretty good.”
Meanwhile, in Russia, millions of people in Russia are no longer communicating through Instagram. The site been banned in the country for about 24 hours now.
The decision was revealed last week. It’s in response to parent company Meta allowing Facebook and Instagram posts referring to violence against Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
Russia has slowly been restricting access to online platforms since the war began. It already banned Facebook and Twitter.
Russia is reportedly asking China for ecomonic and military assistance as it wages war against Ukraine. It’s unclear if China has responded to the request. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the U.S. said he was unaware of Russia’s request, and that China will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.
