Ukraine’s president slams NATO as Johnson and Macron discuss ‘despicable’ attack
The prime minister has met with French president Emmanuel Macron today to discuss “the worst war on our continent for a long time”, as Ukraine’s leader slams NATO.
Boris Johnson and Macron, who have not always seen eye to eye, agreed it was “imperative” to both countries to continue to provide humanitarian, economic and military support to Ukraine, the government said in a statement on Saturday.
The pair added that the damage to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility, was “despicable”.
“Both leaders reiterated the UK and France would work closely in the coming days in the face of Putin’s increasingly savage and evil actions,” the statement said.
It comes as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken out against the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) for not imposing a no-fly zone which would cover a significant amount of Europe.
Speaking from Kyiv, Zelensky said the West’s reluctance to intervene has given Russia “a green light” to continue bombarding towns and villages.
“All the people who will die starting from this day will also die because of you. Because of your weakness, because of your disunity,” he said.
Calls for a no-fly zone, which could see Russian planes shot out of the sky for passing borders, has prompted fears of World War III, which many expect to result in disastrous nuclear warfare.
On Friday, NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg warned that the move could lead to a “full-fledged war in Europe involving many more countries and causing much more human suffering”.