>> ukrainian ambassador to the u.s. holds a briefing to update the press on the second day of fighting with russia's invading forces.

this is about 40 minutes. [inaudible] >> hello to everyone. everyone, ready? good afternoon. good afternoon here in washington, d.c. in ukraine, it is the second or third day of war. war that russia started against our country. i would like to thank all of the media here for keeping close attention, to help them to a four americans and international audiences about the recent development in ukraine, about the crimes that russia is doing now against our country, but also about our resistance.

as i said during the last 48 hours, ukraine has been a victim of unprovoked aggression by the russian federation. the second day was even harder. the attacks have been more brutal. i'm very pleased to say that they were not successful. definitely not successful as the enemy plant them. the air raids, tanks, and rocket shelling of ukrainian citizens are reminiscent of the scenes of the world community not seen since world war ii. i'm sure people throughout the grow -- love -- globe are surprised -- shocked to see this battle around kyiv.

also, everywhere in ukraine. the last 48 hours, intense battled content -- battles continued. i want to assure you that the spirit of ukrainian armies and people and territorial defense remain strong. the commendable fighting spirit has been demonstrated yesterday when 13 soldiers were posted on serpas island. on the south of ukraine, in a small ukrainian border patrol outpost. they all refused to surrender to the russian battleship. they all were killed. our president says that all 13 people will be heroes of ukraine. they will be recognized as

heroes of ukraine. moreover, every week ukrainian women and men who are fighting today for their country, they are heroes and they are defending our home. the enemy is clearly surprised by the results of the cream -- ukrainian armed forces, protecting integrity of our country. we see that they didn't advance the way they planned. we see that they advanced from east, from south, from north and massive attacks from the air. these advances are not successful. the russian propaganda machine attempt to convince the world that civilian populations were not targeted. i want to tell you directly that this is simply not true. the last events of the last night here, day and night in

ukraine, brought new horrific scenes of the russian war crimes. first of all, we have many people right now not living their day-to-day lives but actually spending the majority of their time in the basement where they take shelter, other safe locations. the russian multi-rocket system hit residential infrastructure. several children were heavily wounded. as a result of the russians shelling, the strategic gas pipeline also got under threat. we already warned all the proper authorities. they also had an orphanage where

50 children were in the orphanage at that moment. the children were not harmed or killed during this attack. several ambulances were also hit by the enemy. in the attempt to cover up these crimes, from their own people, because we all know the truth. i know the information everywhere in europe is open for the public. they would like to cover it from their own people, from russian people. today, the russian authorities have decided to limit access to facebook and russia. the international community already documented this crime to present necessary evidence to the international government and our prosecutor general is collecting all the data and preparing it all for the

international trade agreement. we are concerned by the situation in the true noble nuclear power plant. we were informed that there were fires and they took over the power plant and the exclusion zone yesterday. we are even more concerned because they took hostages. 92 operators of the power plant. contrary to the rules of how the personnel should work in shifts, all very strict regulations, they are not observed right now. security now relies on the russian forces and armies. but we are very concerned that the chernobyl shelter is under threat of any type of random attack by the rund -- russian

federation. we are calling for all the international friends and partners to keep a close eye on that. despite all this activity and despite the fact that the russian federation increase their attacks on all of ukraine, the ukrainian armed forces manage not only to keep the situation under control but significantly stop the russian army. in the last two days together, we have destroyed 10 airplanes, seven helicopters, and 516 arms vehicles of the enemy. as a result of mr. prudence decision to send russians to kill ukrainians, 2800 russian soldiers will not be going back to russia. again, ukraine is a peaceful country.

we worked really hard to stop and prevent this war. we worked really hard to deter russia from attacking our country. together with our friends and allies and the international community, we never attacked anyone. we never attacked russian federation. this whole roar -- war is unjust, unprovoked, and totally baseless. at the same time, as our president and chief commander said, since we were attacked and we are defending our home, we will be inflicting as many damages to the enemy as possible in order to defend ukraine. i would also like to say how think the we are to all of our friends and allies, especially to the united states. our strategic partner. i guess i should say strategic

friend. we have received not only significant defense assistance, financial assistance, and clear support from the leadership. as we are talking to you today, our president just had yet another very productive call with president biden. we have discussed on this call the antiwar coalition and how we align all of our plans and we discussed the sanctions and more defense to ukraine. we see that this antiwar coalition, which includes 73 countries and nine international organization's, is working hand-in-hand not only to support

and defend ukraine but to support and defend the civil principal that any country that decided to be an independent sovereign, has the right to do so without being attacked by military power. we already see today that the european union decided to freeze the assets of mr. pruden. who are responsible for this decision to start the war. we strongly welcome the decision of the council of europe. as our minister of foreign relations said, all the red lines have been crossed when russia attacked us. it's time not only to heavily sanction russia but it's also time to exclude them from any

organizations where countries that are not peaceloving countries, countries that do not value peace, countries that attack other countries do not have the right to meet. we are thankful to all of our friends and allies. i don't want to miss someone here. european union, great britain, estonia, lithuania, all of you, thank you very much for the support. of course, we are working. we are grateful for the support and we are working very closely with all of them in order to receive more support and in order to strengthen sanctions against the russian federation. as much as we see that the sanctions are implemented, they are affecting russia already. the behavior doesn't stop. more strong sanctions should follow as we work with our

partners on that. additional measures. as i said, anything -- we are focused on three cute -- key areas. one is punishing russia for its actions. strong sanctions, strong messages from all international organizations, excluding russia from all international organizations. severing the diplomatic relationships with russia. we have to together say no to military aggression against one of the european countries and the love europe. the second very important point is different support to ukraine. our brave men and women, all of us.

since yesterday, we have the overall mobilization the country. all ukrainians are defending the country at the moment. either in the armed forces or territorial defense or everywhere where help is needed right now. and we need all the support we can get from all of our friends and allies so we can sustain this defense action. the third is the humanitarian assistance and financial assistance. we need that in order to take care of our people, people who were forced to relocate within ukraine, people whose daily life has been interrupted. people who have been wounded. people who have to continue their life and support our military armed forces. i would like to finish by saying

, we are thankful to those russian citizens who yesterday, in the last two days went to the streets of moscow and did their best to protest against putin's attack on ukraine. not as many as we would like to see. we would like to say from ukraine that we see you and we noted that protest. it gives us hope that this attack will not only be stopped by us and all the civilized world, but there are forces in russia, citizens in russia who do not want and support the brutal attack on their neighbors. thank you very much. i would be happy to answer questions. >> [inaudible]

>> thank you. we are. we have very productive discussions with the united states and with all of our friends and allies. we will be informing when there are decisions. i want to say that the help that the united states has provided to ukraine, the 650 million of defense support in 2021, the highest number since 2014. all the discussions that we have and all the support we have from the united states right now is at a very high level. we are working closely with our friends here. >> what was the reaction of president biden today? when did he and president zelensky last speak?

when was our last conversation? >> it was just a couple -- 10, 15 minutes ago. if you would take a look, there's a tweet from our president about it. you have to understand, the situation is very tense in ukraine. as you probably saw from president zelensky, tweeting and also doing video messages to keep ukrainians and the rest of the world informed about what we are doing. prevention -- president zelensky is in kyiv along with the head of our government. they recently put out a video in front of the president's office, essentially the simple message. saying we are here, we are in ukraine, we defend our country, and we intend to continue doing so. >> what were your reactions to president biden's remarks yesterday? >> well, we are grateful for

this sanction. it covers very broad range of topics. as a former minister of finance, i was happy to see the sanctions against major russian banks. i was very happy to see export controls. i was very happy to see the personal sanctions and all of that. we also heard from president biden that he's -- our reaction has been voiced by our president right away. we are thankful for the strong sanctions that will be heard and felt in russia. we look forward for the next. >> [inaudible] what is your impression as far as that? >> there's only one person who

knows what we need to do for him to stop and it is mr. pruden. he's the one who started this war in 2014. he is the one who started this war in 2021 with the escalation. he's the one who started full-fledged war right now. so we can guess what will make him stop. i think what we should do, and we should be united and it. we are happy that we have 73 countries together with us so we can do everything that it takes for him to stop. a sovereign country where he and his armed forces should not be. stop this war against his country. there will be another event which you will probably be covering today, the meeting of

the secretive council of the united nations. we will be discussing and adopting the resolution on this issue. we also call on all of the friends and allies of the countries, not only to support the resolution, to also be strong and decisive. we need to show that we together can react on this, we can react quick, we can decisively take decisions. >> do you have a comp -- comment on where a diplomatic avenue may stand? >> as our president said, since he was elected in 2019, bringing peace to ukraine will always be

his number one priority. number two is, we've done everything since 2019 -- even though -- to comply with the minced accords. and ensure that we are moving forward and returning through diplomatic solutions the territories. we also started the crimean platform to create another diplomatic platform and solution to return through diplomatic solutions crimea which is also illegally occupied by russia. so our devotion to peace doesn't need to be proven. during the past three years, that was his actions. his actions were going to get

sick -- diplomatic solutions to ripped -- restore our country. based before the attack, our president was very public and always said that he was ready to meet with mr. pruden -- putin and discuss this issue in a peaceful and diplomatic manner. yesterday, again in his public statement, our president said that we will defend our country. this is priority number one right now. of course, we are ready for peace talks. he made very clear that we are ready for peace talks but we are not ready to capitulate or surrender. >> [inaudible] >> i cannot comment on something that didn't happen. i can say that what seems

already a decision that was made public that the european union implemented sanctions. it seems like the right move. it was president putin's decision to attack ukraine. it was his public decision. he's the one who is response before the war. >> among the tools you are using to defend your country, [inaudible] how extensively have those weapons been used by your forces? how successful have they been? how many tanks and helicopters were destroyed by u.s. weapons? >> let me answer it in this way. without disclosing what i shouldn't be disclosing. i want to tell you that we are using them actively and very effectively. >> are you asking for more,

formally? >> yes. >> when will that request come down? >> that i cannot tell you. we are working very closely. not only with the united states but with other friends and allies. you saw the statement after the nato meeting. not only the u.s. but other allies will be providing us with additional defense of quitman. thank you. >> what would you like to see? [inaudible] would you like to see nato deploy troops? >> i think you know the answer. let me answer it this way. in 2008 -- 2018, we changed our constitution and we included our desire to join the european

union and nato in our constitution. our problem it did so because the majority of ukrainians, 680%, support ukraine joining nato. nato is an alliance and we need the decision of all 30 members to accept us. we have been on a very strong path towards working with our friends and allies in nato on our plans to, in the future, become a member of nato. in 2020, ukraine became a partner with nato. that allowed us to cooperate in so many areas. from training to getting our army more nato compliant, to transform the country. again, contrary to what russia things, nato is not a military alliance. nato and so many other cooperations are focused on the rule of law and democracy and

everything that we will be able to discuss when the war is over in my country is free from their attacks. right now of course, priority number one is to defend the country. we are talking to all of our friends and allies to provide us with all the security and defense capabilities right now. as a citizen of ukraine, of course i hope that we will soon win. then we will return to the discussions of so many strategic issues and items on the agenda including the nato membership. >> do you have an update on civilian casualties? [inaudible] is that something your government is going to ask for? >> thank you.

i don't have the numbers for you right now. we are collecting the information from everywhere and i only want to use the numbers. closer to the end of the day in ukraine, we would be happy to share those numbers with you. it has been very hard. today, especially when russia is deliberately targeting some of the civilians and others, it has been very hard. >> [inaudible] >> no-fly zone. there are so many things that we are talking about with all of our friends and allies. of course, a country that is attacked, is fighting for our existence right now, needs -- against a much stronger enemy. we are asking our friends and

allies for any type of support or any type of sanctions or restrictions that they might provide. i will not be discussing the specifics of them because i think it's very important for us to stay united to discuss them and implement them when we agree . >> can you give an >> can you give an update on the security situation in and around key? -- kyiv? how long do you expect to hold out for? amb. markarova: kyiv has belonged to ukrainians for a couple thousand years, and we intend to keep it, but the situation is very difficult. there has been an air assault on kyiv. there is destruction of the

infrastructure. there were groups that tried to get into kyiv and some of them got into some parts of kyiv. but kyiv is fully under control of ukrainian armed forces. the national guards and territorial defense. even though the situation remains tense, because we heard from mr. putin's speech that his goal is to attack all of ukrainian capture kyiv, and his goal is to have a russian government in kyiv. now, all three of those we ukrainians believe is not only not possible, but we will do everything possible to prevent that from happening. >> [indiscernible]

could you kind of stay there -- [indiscernible] amb. markarova: president zelensky is in kyiv. he regularly records messages from kyiv. he intends to stay there, and our armed forces also intense as well as all people who live in kyiv to feel free to defend our capital. reporter: [indiscernible] what exactly does your government believe -- [indiscernible]

amb. markarova: the only thing i can say now is what our president says, that at any stage we are ready to -- of course for peace talks, but we are not ready to capitulate or surrender. when we have, or if we have more information about that, because we only have heard what we heard like you in the press. reporter: but there has not been any direct communication? amb. markarova: nothing i can share with you, no. reporter: can you authenticate the audio clip from serpent island? is that authenticated or is that disinformation? amb. markarova: it was shared by our commander-in-chief, and we are proud that military men

responded like they should have responded to the proposal to surrender. reporter: you are authenticating that is accurate and not made up? amb. markarova: well, being an washington, d.c., i cannot check personally to a thin ticket, but yes, it was shared by -- two authenticate but yes, it was shared by official sources in ukraine. reporter: [indiscernible] are you seeing any evidence of that? amb. markarova: we see the attempt, but we know that so far, during the 48 hours, only people who surrendered, and we have it on the video, and we have them in captivity, are the russian forces. we also would like to ask all of

you to take information from official sources from ukraine -- our commander-in-chief, our territorial defense, our armed forces. they all are very active and have information in ukrainian language and other languages. we also have embassy resources updated on a regular basis. please take it from there, and our security service is also monitoring for disinformation. because this attack, since we are all focused on the military attack, but the hybrid attacks did not disappear. so they are trying to spread disinformation. i want to tell you that all ukrainian channels now work as one. they united not only our political partners, but --

not only our parliamentary partners, but also the tv stations in ukraine work together and provide citizens with up-to-date information on a regular basis, but they also inform what to do, where they should go on a regular basis. we know there are a lot of disinformation efforts, but we seem to battle them successfully for the moment. reporter: recovering chernobyl, have you received any guidance from the united states or nato, considering the fighting going on there and how delicate that region is? has he won reached out -- has anyone reached out regarding next steps in that area? amb. markarova: we are reaching out to everyone and informing everyone and all the regulatory

boards that have to do with the nuclear station. the nuclear industry is quite large in ukraine. a large portion of our energy is nuclear. we have a number of power plants. that is why we put special emphasis on guiding them against the enemy -- guarding them against the enemy so we can run them in the time of attack. for chernobyl, our national guard defended it before it was taken over, but we are trying to be very responsible and careful so that there is no damage to it. we cannot say the same about the russian federation. that is why we are reaching out to everyone. this is the issue that has to be discussed. russia has to be pressed on this topic. reporter: [speaking foreign language]

amb. markarova: would you like me to answer in english or ukrainian? in ukrainian, i can answer later on, but the question was that many ukrainians are leaving the country now, looking for -- essentially saving their children from the attacks, and some ukrainians want to come back, but because there are no flights to kyiv, it is difficult. the question was what we can recommend as the embassy. first i would like to ask all ukrainian citizens here in the united states to be in contact with the embassies, our consulate in washington, d.c., but also in chicago, san francisco, houston, and new york.

we are a 24/7 regime like all of ukraine right now, so if you have questions, please contact us and we will be happy to assist. the second question, yes, there are many ukrainians coming back home to their country, and even though there are no flights, they are flying into the closest european places, and there is no problem with crossing the border. we know many ukrainians who, as we speak, are flying back home and will be in ukraine through any checkpoints on the western border. and on people who are taken out, they are grateful to the neighboring countries for the help they are providing to these people while they temporarily leave. it is understood that if it is all people or women or small kids, we value every life of every ukrainian, and we would like to protect every life.

we are making everything possible, plus the ministers of ukraine have a special meeting today and they made it easier to deal with quite a number of procedures and processes to get the humanitarian assistance into the country so that we can be more effective in supplying our people. and we are working with the united states actively with -- i had a very productive call with ambassador power, who is coordinating the assistance that the u.s. can provide us on this very important topic. reporter: [indiscernible] can you give us an update on how many people have been displaced? amb. markarova: i cannot tell you the numbers, and i do not want to speculate here, but on

the humanitarian assistance, we have had a couple ministers, the minister of social policy andy feiss prime minister on the renegotiation of territories, they, together, under their orders from the prime minister are working on their orders, putting together the needs so they can get the supplies that are necessary, and we are working hard to spread it within the country quickly. reporter: zelinski is in the country with no plans to surrender. is he going to fight to the death? what is the strategy? amb. markarova: the strategy of the president and all ukrainians is to fight until our victory.

we would like, together with our friends, allies and partners and armed forces, to get there faster, so we are not losing the best and bravest we have in our armed forces. reporter: how many of your military have been killed to date? you said 2800. how many of your soldiers? amb. markarova: we will have the number later on. i only have yesterday's number and i do not want to share the old information. reporter: are there any insights you could share -- [indiscernible] also, intelligence with ukraine -- anything in that way? amb. markarova: it has been very

productive. you saw the tweet. the president expressed gratitude to the u.s. for their support. and we discussed three items, which are the important items on the agenda. the defense, the sanctions, and other items on the agenda. how can we move this anti-putin coalition forward? it has been a very good call. under the circumstances, we have to understand it is not easy to conduct phone calls and meetings when your city is being bombed by rockets and missiles by the enemy. but it was a very good call. we are very closely cooperating on the situation, sharing the information and discussing the needs in order to continue. thank you very much again.

thank you for coming. if you would like us to send you more information, please leave emails with our press secretary so that when we have updates, you don't have to come here, but we can actually email you quickly, and hopefully we will see hi there at the end of tomorrow or soon -- see each other at the end of tomorrow or soon. thank you. reporter: