Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses lawmakers in Luxembourg.
Kyiv:
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that Russia controls about a fifth of his country, including land acquired by Moscow’s invasion, annexed Crimea and territory held by separatists. Moscow-backed hold.
“Today, about 20% of our territory is under the control of the occupiers,” the Ukrainian leader said in a speech to lawmakers in Luxembourg.
Russian forces are consolidating their power in the eastern Donbas region and pushing toward Ukraine’s de facto administrative center in that region, Kramatorsk.
However, they retreated from the areas around the capital and to the northeast to focus their assault on the eastern industrial area.
Zelensky said that in 2014, Kremlin-backed separatists and the Russian military controlled 43,000 square kilometers (16,600 square miles), an area he compared to the size of the Netherlands.
But that number – more than three months since the Russian invasion – has grown to nearly 125,000 square kilometers, territory he said is “much larger” than the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg combined.
He also told lawmakers that an area more than twice the size – “nearly 300,000 square kilometers” – was “polluted” by landmines and unexploded ordnance.
He added: “12 million Ukrainians have been displaced and more than 5 million have gone abroad.
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