Zelensky launches crowdfunding platform to help win war
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday launched a global crowdfunding platform to help Kyiv win the war with Russia and rebuild the country's infrastructure.
"In one click, you can donate funds to protect our defenders, to save our civilians and to rebuild Ukraine," Zelensky said in English in a video on his Twitter page, launching the United24 platform.
"Every donation matters for victory."
We launched United24 @U24_gov_ua global initiative.
— ????????? ?????????? (@ZelenskyyUa) May 5, 2022
Its 1st component is an online platform to raise funds in support of ????????. Other projects & programs will be added soon.
You can make a donation in 1 click from any country.
Together we will win!#united24 #thepoweroffreedom pic.twitter.com/notUt1P3ZF
Nine weeks into Russia's invasion, Ukrainian cities have suffered vast destruction.
"All funds will be transferred to the national bank of Ukraine and allocated to the relevant ministries," Zelensky said, indicating that his government would give an update "every 24 hours" about how the money was being used.
The Ukrainian leader called on ordinary people around the world to help Kyiv defeat Moscow.
"Only together we have the potential to stop the war and to rebuild what Russia has destroyed."
He said Ukraine will always remember the contributions.
War bill hits '$600 billion'
Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmygal told a news conference that preliminary economic losses from the war are estimated to be about $600 billion, adding that most of the losses should be covered with "money from the aggressor".
Ukraine also needed between $4 to $5 billion a month just to cover the budget deficit, he said, flagging the crisis in its all-important grain exports with six of its largest storage facilities hit by missiles.
"Russia is provoking a food security crisis. Now millions of tonnes of our grain are blocked in our ports," he said, urging the international community to pressure Russia "to organise corridors to transport grain to countries which badly need it".
Ukraine is a key global supplier of grain.
Since the start of the war, Ukraine has reached out with various fundraising efforts, initially saying it was accepting cryptocurrency donations and publishing its official donations address on Twitter.
Then in mid-March it launched an "Aid for Ukraine" website in partnership with crypto-firms FTX and Everstake with all donations funnelled to Ukraine's central bank.
Offering donors the chance to give in 10 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, ether, tether and dogecoin, the campaign was an immediate hit with its official website tweeting on March 19: "Over $60M contributed, with $10M donated in a few days!"
Kyiv has received Western military aid, but its army remains far smaller than Russia's.
Zelensky, 44, has addressed parliaments around the world on an almost daily basis, appealing for support amid Moscow's attack.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday secured Turkey's crucial backing for Ukraine's NATO aspirations after winning a US pledge for cluster munitions that could inflict massive damage on Russian forces on the battlefield.
Washington's decision to deliver the controversial weapons — banned across a large part of the world but not in Russia or Ukraine — dramatically ups the stakes in the war, which entered its 500th day Saturday.
Zelensky has been travelling across Europe trying to secure bigger and better weapons for his outmatched army, which has launched a long-awaited counteroffensive that is progressing less swiftly than Ukraine's allies had hoped. — AFP
Washington's decision to supply Ukraine with ATACMS long-range missiles is "a grave mistake", Russian ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov says Wednesday.
"The White House's decision to send long-range missiles to Ukrainians is a grave mistake. The consequences of this step, which was deliberately hidden from the public, will be of the most serious nature," he says in a statement. — AFP
President Vladimir Putin says Sunday that Russian forces had made gains in their Ukraine offensive including in Avdiivka, a symbolic industrial hub.
"Our troops are improving their position in almost all of this area, which is quite vast," he says in an interview on Russian television, an extract of which was posted on social media on Sunday. "This concerns the areas of Kupiansk, Zaporizhia and Avdiivka." — AFP
The regional governor says debris from a drone destroyed over the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, fell on homes and killed three people, including a young child.
The air defense system "shot down an aircraft-type UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) approaching the city", says Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, adding that the falling debris destroyed several homes.
"Most importantly, three people were killed, one of them a small child," he writes on the Telegram messaging app, accompanied by pictures of a house reduced to a pile of rubble behind red and white police tape. — AFP
Ukraine's air force says on Tuesday that it had destroyed 27 of 36 Russian attack drones overnight in the south of the country.
Ukrainian forces downed 27 "Shahed-136/131" drones in the southern Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, the air force said on the messaging platform Telegram.
In all, Moscow had launched 36 of the Iranian-made drones from the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, it says. — AFP
The Kremlin claims on Friday Russian forces never targeted civilian infrastructure after Ukraine blamed Moscow for a missile attack that killed over 50 people in the eastern village of Groza.
"We repeat that the Russian military does not strike civilian targets. Strikes are carried out on military targets, on places where military personnel are concentrated," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says in his daily briefing. — AFP
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