Zelensky: West Should Solve Ukrainian ‘Technical Issue,’ Provide Combat Aircraft 

The Ukrainian president says if westerners don’t supply Ukraine with combat aircraft they’ll be responsible for “large-scale humanitarian catastrophe.”

QUICK FACTS:

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling on the west to send combat aircraft or be the cause of a humanitarian catastrophe, according to Ukrinform.
• The Ukrainian multimedia platform for broadcasting went on to say that the president of the besieged nation is calling the hesitance a “technical issue.”
• Zelensky cited the two weeks of “brutal war” and “terror” against Ukraine as reason that Poland and other nations contemplating the help, should stop shifting responsibility.
• The United States was also involved in Zelensky’s diatribe, saying it received word that Poland would need to transfer the aircraft to an American base.
• Zelensky also said that Washington has denied this plan, something the Ukrainian leader called out as unacceptable.

🔺 Update: The United States has rejected Poland’s surprise announcement that it would hand over its fleet of MiG-29 fighter jets to President Zelensky’s government https://t.co/C7fElc1WJW

— The Times (@thetimes) March 9, 2022

ZELENSKY’S STATEMENT:

• “Fourteen days of a full-scale brutal war. Terror against our people. Destruction of cities, blockade of entire districts, constant bombing… Fourteen days of absence of a vital decision. Not our decision! We would make that decision in hours if we had to help our friends,” President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said in his address to the citizens.
• The Ukrainian president went so far as to say, “If you do not close the sky, you will also be responsible for this catastrophe, a large-scale humanitarian catastrophe.”
• “Russia uses missiles, aircraft, helicopters against us, against civilians, against our cities, against our infrastructure. This is the world’s humanitarian duty to respond. But… There is no decision,” he added.

BACKGROUND:

• Ukraine has been the subject of a Russian military incursion for two weeks, with the world rallying in long-distance support of the Eastern European nation, though they are seemingly unwilling to engage in an all-out war with Russia.
• The United States has, however, begun real-time intelligence sharing with the nation of Ukraine, as The Hill reported.