‘Don’t watch us die of cold’

Ukraine needs extra help to protect its energy framework from another Russian blitz, a Zelensky aide

- Bel Trew

Ukraine's Western allies must urgently speed up delivery of air defence missiles, and drones to protect energy infrastructure, a top adviser to President Zelensky has said, warning if they did not "our partners will watch us die from cold live on TV".

Speaking to The Independent in the capital Kyiv, Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior Ukrainian adviser and a chief negotiator, said that Russia had one aim: "to destroy the civilian population of Ukraine" by making them freeze to death. Mr Podolyak wants Ukraine's allies, particularly the UK, to help reconstruct the damaged facilities and to send more weapons.

"We don't want our partners to watch us dying from the cold live on TV. And we don't want them to see what else Russia will do to destroy the civilian population of Ukraine," he said. "The political elites of our partner countries should make their consensus decision. [They must] transfer as quickly as possible everything they have of defensive weapons so that Russia does not kill the citizens of Ukraine by freezing them to death.

"We want our partners to understand that the Russian Federation is simply killing our people en masse." He added that even with a change in government in the UK, which has cycled through three prime ministers in just a few months, Ukraine expected "sincere, comprehensive and maximum support from the new British government" as it was "extremely advantageous for both Ukraine and Britain".