UKRAINIAN medical services are holding up “quite well”, its ambassador to the UK has said after a horrendous onslaught on Monday which saw at least nine people – including three children – killed.
Vadym Prystaiko said that while the Minister for Health did not have the “full information” on the situation because some cities remained isolated, they still possessed medical supplies.
He told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday morning that Ukrainian medical staff had “found the softness in our hearts to treat the Russian wounded and we promised them they would be treated in our hospitals”.
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Ukrainian soldiers inspect a damaged military vehicle after fighting in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Sunday/AP
They would be returned to Russian “after the war is over”, he added.
There has been severe damage from Russian bombing in Kyiv and Kharkiv and more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers were killed after bombs fell on a military base in Okhtyrka, a city near the Russian border.
Officials in Kharkiv are searching “under the rubble” for bodies, Prystaiko said and there would be an update on the number of civilian casualties.
“The losses are enormous, we are trying not to publicise these losses, for obvious reasons,” he said.
A 40-mile convoy of Russian tanks and other military vehicles are inching towards Kyiv as the war reached its sixth day on Tuesday.
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With the Russian advance and separatist forces in Donetsk saying they are preparing for the evacuation of the Mariupol which could pave the way for an attack on the key Azov Sea port, there are growing fears Ukrainians could be facing a food crisis.
But Prystaiko said he could not publicly provide figures relating to the potential crisis.
He added: “I have figures which I will be able to share with you only in closed conversations, unfortunately.
“Russia will try to crush the will of the Ukrainian people to resist. I am asking private citizens to send pictures of the supermarkets; how are the shelves doing, what is supplied?”
There are problems with people “running out” of cash and Prystaiko suggested the military could help with the provision of food.
Asked if Vladimir Putin’s aim was to defeat Ukraine entirely or pressure its major cities into surrender, Prystaiko said: “The resilience is going so much against his plans and Russians themselves are asking questions – what are we doing here?”
In a speech in Warsaw, Boris Johnson said Putin was “tearing up every principle of civilised behaviour between states”.
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“He has hurled his war machine on the people of Ukraine, a fellow Slavic country, he has bombarded civilian targets, fired rockets at blocks of flats, he is responsible for hundreds of civilian casualties including growing numbers of children.
“And also, of course, for the deaths of many Russian and Ukrainian soldiers.
“We must accept the grim reality that Putin will continue to tighten the vice and, if you go by the size and firepower of Vladimir Putin’s war machine, the odds have always been heavily against Ukrainian armed forces.”
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