Zelenskyy says Putin cannot be trusted

NEW YORK, Sep 20: Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy has suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin is behind the plane crash that killed Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin last month.

“Evil cannot be trusted. Ask Prigozhin – if one bets on Putin’s promises,” Zelenskyy said.

Prigozhin, whose mercenary forces fought for Russia in Ukraine, led a short-lived mutiny against the Kremlin weeks before his death.

Zelenskyy has also called on the world to push to implement his 10-point peace formula, which calls for Russia’s withdrawal from Ukrainian territories and establishing a special tribunal to prosecute war crimes.

“For the first time in modern history, we have a real chance to end the aggression on the terms of the nation which was attacked,” the Ukrainian president said.

He urged the world to unite against what he called Russia’s aggression, portraying the invasion of Ukraine as an existential threat to global order akin to nuclear weapons.

“It takes our unity to make sure that aggression will not [happen] in again,” he said.

President Zelenskyy accused Russia of committing genocide by abducting thousands of Ukrainian children and indoctrinating them against the country.

“We’re trying to get [the] children back home, but time goes by. What will happen to them? Those children in Russia are told to hate Ukraine, and all ties with their families are broken, and this is clearly a genocide,” Zelenskyy said.

Moscow has denied abducting Ukrainian children, saying that it has simply conducted rescue operations for families trapped in war zones in the east of Ukraine.

(Al Jazeera)