Zelenskyy Visits The Hague Following Night Of Russian Counterstrikes – After the Kremlin claimed on Wednesday that Ukraine attempted to assassinate President Vladimir Putin in a series of thwarted drone strikes in Moscow, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the Hague during a surprise trip to the Netherlands.
The symbolic visit also followed a day of Russian counterstrikes in Ukraine.
Speaking at the International Criminal Court ahead of meetings with the Dutch and Belgian prime ministers, the Ukrainian president said that he would like to see the Russian president at the court.
“We all want to see a different Vladimir here in The Hague,” Zelenskyy said, adding that the Russian president “deserves to be sentenced” for the war crimes he stands accused of.
During the same speech, the Ukrainian president urged world leaders to hold the Russian president accountable for crimes committed against his countrymen.
The visit came a day after a trip to Finland where he praised NATO and the historic decision by the country to join the military alliance – a decision that doubled the size of the Russia-NATO border overnight.
Kyiv Targeted After Kremlin Attack
Ukraine’s capital city saw some of the worst Russian strikes since the beginning of the conflict on Wednesday night. The Ukrainian military revealed how Russian missiles struck the city for the third time in just four days.
Writing on Telegram, the head of Kyiv’s military administration described an unprecedented level of strikes on the city.
“Our city has not experienced such a heavy intensity of attacks since the beginning of this year! Last night, the aggressor launched another large-scale air strike on the capital,” Serhiy Popko wrote.
Popko confirmed that all missiles and drones directed at Kyiv were destroyed by Ukrainian air forces. Among the weapons used in the retaliatory strike were Iranian-made Shahed drones and ballistic missiles.
Video footage shared online showed the moment that one of the Shahed drones was shot down over downtown Kyiv. The winged drone could be seen flying in the air, before being shot out of the sky by a Ukrainian air defense system.
No casualties were recorded and there was no damage to civilian infrastructure.
Air raid sirens reportedly sounded for over three hours throughout the attack, and strikes were also directed at the city of Odesa.
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Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
