President Zelensky says Russia has almost 200,000 soldiers on its border with Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this Wednesday during his recorded message.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Russia could start a "great war in Europe" in the coming days and warned that the country has "almost 200,000 soldiers positioned in thousands of combat vehicles" throughout the more than 2,000 kilometers of common border.

In a speech released on his Telegram channel in which he spoke in Russian and Ukrainian, he has further revealed that he has tried to speak with Vladimir Putin without success.

“I started a telephone conversation with the president of the Russian Federation.

Result: silence”, he stated, adding that he is ready to negotiate with Moscow on any channel and at any time.

According to the president, the Russian invasion could begin "any day", at the risk of "becoming the start of a great war in Europe".

“Do the Russians want war?

I would love to know the answer to this question”, he said, appealing to the population of the neighboring country.

"And this answer depends on you, citizens of the Russian Federation."

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“We don't need war, not hot, not cold, not hybrid.

But if the troops attack us and someone tries to take away our country, our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children, then we will defend ourselves.

And when they attack us they will see our faces, not our backs”, said the Ukrainian president while the airports of Kharkov and Dnipro, in eastern Ukraine, closed their runways unexpectedly.

Russia has also closed its airspace in the areas closest to the border with Ukraine.

The escalation of tension on the Russian-Ukrainian border further increased this week after Putin decided on Monday to recognize the sovereignty of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, controlled by pro-Russian separatist forces, and sent soldiers on an alleged "mission of peace", in an operation interpreted by the US and Europe as "the beginning of the invasion" of the country.

This Wednesday, the United States Department of Defense has warned that Russian troops "are ready" to carry out an attack on Ukraine and that the Kremlin plans a large-scale invasion of the former Soviet republic "imminently". .

Secretary of State Antony Blinken later told NBC News that Russia could invade Ukraine before the night is out, but he still sees a chance to "avert major aggression."

"Everything seems to be in place for Russia to engage in a major aggression against Ukraine," Blinken said in an interview, adding that he could not be precise about the time or place.

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