Ukraine’s prime minister on Friday used an address to a high-level diplomatic forum to call on leaders to stop Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“I call on all leaders that are now listening to me to exercise utmost political will and utmost human responsibility to take all measures to stop atrocities now,” said Denys Shmyhal in his address to the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in southern Turkiye.
Shmyhal, wearing army khakis as he spoke via video from besieged Ukraine, also called on the leaders to urge Russia to use all its power to “stop a humanitarian crisis” in his country.
“Make it clear to Kremlin and all those who participate, support, or promote its aggressive policies that they will have no place to go, no place to hide, no place to trade with. If they do, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, your country can come under attack too. The future depends on all of you,” he said in a speech which met applause from the audience of mostly international leaders in Antalya, Turkiye.
Shmyhal was speaking as part of a panel titled “Price of Peace or Cost of War” at the four-day Antalya Diplomacy Forum, which lasts through Sunday. The high-level event gathers participants from 75 countries, including 17 heads of state, 80 government ministers, and 39 representatives of international organizations.
Anadolu Agency is the forum’s global communications partner.
Shmyhal said that the participation of representatives of Ukraine in the “forum designed to give a new impetus to diplomacy for solving problems of nowadays” would be “completely different.”
“Two weeks ago, we were working on preparing the visit of the Ukrainian delegation led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Antalya. During this visit,” he said.
Zelenskyy remains in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, with a Russian ground attack on the city looking close to imminent.
“On the morning of 24 February 2022, the world changed. And not only for Ukraine. Russia insidiously attacked peaceful Ukraine, its people and infrastructure from the air and from the ground,” he added.
Following Turkiye’s efforts, Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers met in Antalya on Thursday, for their first face-to-face meeting since the war started on Feb. 24, but the talks did not yield a breakthrough.
At least 564 civilians have been killed and more than 950 others injured in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, according to UN figures.
Over 2.5 million Ukrainians have also fled to neighboring countries, with some 2 million displaced internally, according to the UN refugee agency.
Source: Anadolu Agency