Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the West of lacking courage as his country fights to stave off Russia's invasion, making an exasperated plea for fighter jets and tanks to sustain a defence in a conflict that has ground into a war of attrition.
Speaking after U.S. President Joe Biden said in a lacerating speech that Russian President Vladimir Putin could not stay in power — words the White House later sought to downplay — Zelensky lashed out at the West's "ping-pong about who and how should hand over jets" and other weapons while Russian missile attacks kill and trap civilians.
"I've talked to the defenders of Mariupol today. I'm in constant contact with them. Their determination, heroism and firmness are astonishing," Zelensky said in a video address early Sunday, referring to the besieged southern city that has suffered some of the war's greatest hardships.
"If only those who have been thinking for 31 days on how to hand over dozens of jets and tanks had one per cent of their courage."
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, now in its 32nd day, has stalled in many areas, its aim to quickly encircle the capital, Kyiv, and force its surrender faltering in the face of staunch Ukrainian resistance — bolstered by weapons from the U.S. and other Western allies.
- Zelensky's speeches use shame effectively in plea for support against Russia, expert says
Ukraine says to defeat Russia, it needs fighter jets and not just the missiles and other defensive weapons supplied so far by the West. A proposal to transfer Polish planes to Ukraine via the United States was scrapped amid NATO concerns about getting drawn into a military conflict with Russia.
In his pointed remarks, Zelensky accused Western governments of being "afraid to prevent this tragedy. Afraid to simply make a decision."
- ListenPutin's faltering narrative about Russia's war in Ukraine
- No reason to trust Russian rhetoric, says UN ambassador Bob Rae
"So, who is in charge of the Euro-Atlantic community? Is it still Moscow, thanks to its scare tactics?" he said. "Our partners must step up their aid to Ukraine."
The speech follows a comment Biden made in Warsaw in which he said of Putin: "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power."
Biden says Putin 'cannot remain in power' in fiery speech on Ukraine
20 hours agoDuration 0:29U.S. President Joe Biden concluded his speech in Warsaw by stating: 'For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power,' in reference to Vladimir Putin. A White House official later said Biden was not calling for regime change in Russia. 0:29
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denounced the remark, saying "It's not up to the president of the U.S. and not up to the Americans to decide who will remain in power in Russia."
U.S. not seeking regime change
U.S. officials quickly stressed that Biden was not calling for an immediate change in government in Moscow.
"We do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday during a visit to Israel. "In this case, as in any case, it's up to the people of the country in question. It's up to the Russian people."
Moscow claims its focus is on wresting from Ukraine the entirety of the eastern Donbas region, which has been partially controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014. A high-ranking Russian military official said Friday that troops were being redirected to the east from other parts of the country.
Push for referendum in Luhansk
The leader of one of the separatist-controlled areas of Donbas said Sunday that he wants to hold a vote on joining Russia, words that could indicate a shift in Russia's position. Leonid Pasechnik, the head of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, said it plans to hold a referendum on becoming part of Russia "in the nearest time."
Russia has supported the separatist rebels in Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk since an insurgency erupted there in 2014, shortly after Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. In talks with Ukraine so far, Moscow has urged Kyiv to acknowledge the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk.
- Russia appears to scale back war ambition to 'liberating' Donbas
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has ground into a war of attrition in many places, with the toll on civilians rising as Moscow seeks to pound cities into submission from entrenched positions.
Russian rockets struck the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Saturday, serving as a reminder that Moscow is willing to strike anywhere in Ukraine despite its claim to be focusing its offensive on the country's east.
3 rockets in Lviv, witness says
Early Sunday, a chemical smell still lingered in the air as firefighters in Lviv sprayed water on a burned section of an oil facility hit in the Russian attack.
A security guard at the site, Yaroslav Prokopiv, said he saw three rockets strike and destroy two oil tanks but no one was hurt.
: 
Explosions heard in Ukraine's western city of Lviv
21 hours agoDuration 2:54Three explosions struck Ukraine's western city of Lviv on Saturday, which has become a transit hub for fleeing Ukrainians. 2:54
"The third strike threw me to the ground," he said.
Russia's back-to-back airstrikes shook the city that has become a haven for an estimated 200,000 people who have had to flee their hometowns. Lviv had been largely spared since the invasion began, although missiles struck an aircraft repair facility near the main airport a week ago.
In the dim, crowded bomb shelter under an apartment block a short ways from the first blast site, Olana Ukrainets, a 34-year-old IT professional, said she couldn't believe she had to hide again after fleeing from the northeastern city of Kharkiv, one of the most bombarded cities of the war.
"We were on one side of the street and saw it on the other side," she said. "We saw fire. I said to my friend, 'What's this?' Then we heard the sound of an explosion and glass breaking. We tried to hide between buildings. I don't know what the target was."
Chernihiv encircled
Two cities on opposite ends of the country are seeing some of the worst suffering at the moment, Chernihiv in the north — strategically located on the road from the Belarusian border to the capital, Kyiv — and Mariupol in the south, a key port city on the Sea of Azov.
Both are encircled by Russian forces, but still holding out.
Chernihiv has been under attack since the early days of the invasion and over the last week, Russia destroyed the main vehicular bridge leading out of the city and rendered a nearby pedestrian bridge impassable, cutting off the last route for civilians to flee, or for food and medicine to be brought in.
Chernihiv's remaining residents are terrified that each blast, bomb and body that lies uncollected on the streets ensnares them in the same macabre trap of unescapable killings and destruction.
"In basements at night, everyone is talking about one thing: Chernihiv becoming [the] next Mariupol," said 38-year-old resident Ihar Kazmerchak, a linguistics scholar.
He spoke to The Associated Press by cellphone, amid incessant beeps signaling that his battery was dying. The city is without power, running water and heating. At pharmacies, the list of medicines no longer available grows longer by the day.
Rationed drinking water
Kazmerchak starts his day in long lines for drinking water, rationed to 10 litres per person. People come with empty bottles and buckets for filling when water-delivery trucks make their rounds.
"Food is running out, and shelling and bombing doesn't stop," he said.
More than half of the city's 280,000 inhabitants have already fled and hundreds who stayed have been killed, Mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko said.
Russian forces have bombed residential areas from low altitude in "absolutely clear weather" and "are deliberately destroying civilian infrastructure: schools, kindergartens, churches, residential buildings and even the local football stadium," Atroshenko told Ukrainian television.
Refugees from Chernihiv who fled the encirclement and reached Poland this week spoke of broad and terrible destruction, with bombs flattening at least two schools in the city centre and strikes also hitting the stadium, museums and many homes.
They said that with utilities knocked out, people are taking water from the Desna to drink and that strikes are killing people while they wait in line for food. Volodymyr Fedorovych, 77, said he narrowly escaped a bomb that fell on a bread line he had been standing in just moments earlier. He said the blast killed 16 people and injured dozens, blowing off arms and legs.
Tired of being scared
So intense is the siege that some xjmtzywof those trapped cannot even muster the strength to be afraid anymore, Kazmerchak said.
"Ravaged houses, fires, corpses in the street, huge aircraft bombs that didn't explode in courtyards are not surprising anyone anymore," he said. "People are simply tired of being scared and don't even always go down to the basements."
Previous bombings of hospitals and other nonmilitary sites, including a theatre in Mariupol where Ukrainian authorities said a Russian airstrike is believed to have killed 300 people last week, already have given rise to war crimes allegations.
The invasion has driven more than 10 million people from their homes, almost a quarter of Ukraine's population. Of those, more than 3.7 million have fled the country entirely, according to the United Nations. Thousands of civilians are believed to have died.
