US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, denounced the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine on Thursday, while expressing hope for achieving peace one day.
He was speaking at a photo exhibition hosted by the Ukrainian Embassy in the national capital.
Addressing the event, Garcetti said, “We have to believe and have faith that one day this will end as all wars do, that there will be accountability and that freedom and democracy will prevail, because we can’t believe in anything else. But what of this disparaged nation, of these killed and slaughtered children.”
The US envoy said that even after the rebuilding of Ukraine is carried out successfully, no one can calculate the “human costs” of the war.
“The costs of building Ukraine, and rebuilding Ukraine are unfathomable, but more. Something you can’t put a number on is to rebuild the human losses that never go away, and that will always be beyond our reach,” Garcetti said.
He added, “But as much I stand outraged with this ongoing barbarity. I stand here as a human being with hope. We can only work for justice, call this illegal, take the anniversary as sad as they are, to see that we are not alone.”
February 24 (Friday) marks the second anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict after Moscow launched the ‘full scale invasion’ of Kyiv in 2022.
Over the past two years, the war has led to widespread destruction, with both sides sustaining a huge number of casualties.
In a recent development in the conflict, the Russian Army captured Ukrainian town of Avdiivka after Kyiv withdrew its troops from the town, Al Jazeera reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed his army terming it as an “important victory”.
Avdiivka was a “powerful defensive hub” for Ukraine’s armed forces and its capture would “move the front line away from Donetsk (city),” reducing Ukraine’s ability to shell the Russian stronghold, the defence ministry said.
Ukraine’s recently appointed army chief, Oleksandr Syrskii announced that the troops have been withdrawn from Avdiivka after months of heavy fighting and “little progress” in repelling Russian forces on the country’s eastern front.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that pulling out troops “was a professional decision that will save many Ukrainian lives.”
In this two-year war, the battle for the industrial hub, less than 10 km (six miles) north of the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk has been one of the bloodiest, according to Al Jazeera.-ANI