Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said over the weekend that the Russian army has suffered unprecedented losses in Ukraine and its biggest blow in decades.
Zelenskyy made the comments during a virtual press conference Saturday held at the presidential office in Kyiv while answering a question about talks between Ukraine and Russia.
Evaluating the possibility of the Russian army entering the capital, he said: “If they decide to carpet bomb (Kyiv) and simply erase the history of this region, the history of the Kyivan Rus, the history of Europe, and destroy all of us, then they will enter Kyiv.”
The Kyivan Rus was a loose federation in Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.
He pointed out that Russia would never find a "friend" in Ukraine in this situation.
"If that's the goal, let them come. But in this case, the enemy will have to live on this land on their own, without us. They will certainly not find friends among us,” he said.
Zelenskyy said that since the beginning of the war, 31 battalion tactical groups of the enemy had been neutralized.
Noting that the situation was very difficult all over Ukraine, he said small towns in some regions had been destroyed and that this was a tragedy.
He said 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had lost their lives in the war so far and that nearly 500 Russian soldiers had been taken prisoner.
