‘This is outright terror’: President Zelensky warns the threat of chemical weapons is ‘very real

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said authorities had managed to evacuate around 100,000 from several cities in the past two days, but warned the threat of Russian forces deploying chemical weapons is ‘very real’ as the invasion enters its third week.

In last night’s televised address to the nation, Zelensky sarcastically addressed Russian troops and asked where they planned to deploy chemical weapons.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said authorities had managed to evacuate around 100,000 from several cities in the past two days, but warned the threat of Russian forces deploying chemical weapons is ‘very real’ as the invasion enters its third week.

In last night’s televised address to the nation, Zelensky sarcastically addressed Russian troops and asked where they planned to deploy chemical weapons.

‘Where will you strike with chemical weapons?’ he asked. ‘At the maternity hospital in Mariupol? At the church in Kharkiv? Okhmadit children’s hospital? Or at our laboratories, which have been around since Soviet times and work on regular technology, not military technology?’

The embattled president also announced civilians were evacuated from the cities of Sumy, Trostyanets, Krasnopillya, Irpin, Bucha, Hostomel and Izyum despite constant shelling, but Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said not a single civilian was able to leave Mariupol on Thursday as Russian forces failed to respect yet another temporary ceasefire.

The constant bombardment of the southern port city, which has been without water and electricity for close to a fortnight due to Russia’s refusal to respect ceasefires, was described by Zelensky as ‘outright terror, from experienced terrorists’.

‘The invaders launched a tank attack exactly where this ‘corridor of life’ was supposed to be. They have a clear order to hold the city of Mariupol hostage, to torture it,’ he said. There was also widespread destruction elsewhere in Ukraine as the invaders continued their indiscriminate bombardment of civilian targets.

The Institute of Physics and Technology in Kharkiv (KIPT) and a high-pressure gas pipeline near Svitlodarsk are two of the latest locations to be decimated in the attacks as the Russian invasion of Ukraine entered its third week.

KIPT was first attacked by Russian bombing campaigns on Monday, but footage has emerged of a new blaze at the complex’s dormitories today after the institute’s neutron source was destroyed in what Ukraine’s Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate called ‘an act of nuclear terrorism’.

The newly built neutron source, which is used to initiate nuclear chain reactions among other applications, was set to play a key role in nuclear physics and radiological materials research.

According to the Inspectorate, the device had been loaded with ‘fresh nuclear fuel’ just prior to the Russian bombardment, and there were fears the shelling of the research facility could pose a threat of nuclear disaster. The Inspectorate said it had not yet ascertained the extent of the damage done to the facility, nor the number of casualties.

But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said no radiation had been released and that staff had placed the assembly into a ‘subcritical state’ prior to the attacks, while Harvard nuclear proliferation researcher Matthew Bunn told Physics Today that the facility generates ‘virtually zero fission products’ with no highly enriched uranium onsite.

Nikolsky mall, a large shopping and entertainment complex in Kharkiv’s city centre, was also reduced to rubble in shelling on Thursday morning.

Meanwhile, a video taken on the outskirts of the eastern city of Svitlodarsk in the Donetsk region purported to show Russian troops destroying a high-pressure gas pipeline, sending huge jets of flame into the sky.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the regional governor of Donetsk, published the video on his Telegram channel, confirming the Russian attack which took place at 4pm GMT.

‘The Russians have just broken a high-pressure gas pipeline near Svitlodarsk,’ Kyrylenko said.

‘How the damaged gas pipeline is burning can be seen from afar. Gas workers will soon find out how quickly they can restore it.’

Russia’s defence ministry said late Thursday that it would declare a ceasefire on Friday and open humanitarian corridors from Mariupol as well as Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mariupol and Chernihiv, but has gone on to break all previous ceasefire agreements and resume shelling of fleeing refugees.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has so far failed to reach its stated objectives, but has caused thousands of deaths and forced more than 2 million people to flee Ukraine in just three weeks.

source: dailymail.co.uk