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Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko detailed the latest situation on the ground in the capital of Ukraine during an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures,” telling host Maria Bartiromo that soldiers in the country are showing a “big will” to win the war.
Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion, called on the West to offer more support to help Ukraine and said that experts told him that the war could last for months.
“Nobody knows, and that’s why we have to be prepared for any scenario,” Klitschko said.
Klitschko made the comments as Russian forces appear to have shifted their focus from a ground offensive aimed at Kyiv, to instead prioritizing what Moscow calls liberation of the contested Donbas region in the country’s industrial east, officials said on Friday.
The mayor of Kyiv said the situation in the capital city “changes every day” and that in the “last 24 hours was pretty quiet compared to last week.”
Klitschko noted that a Russian “target” is his city, and that the citizens of Kyiv will continue to fight.
Kyiv is “prepared to defend our city,” he stressed to Bartiromo as he referenced the surprisingly stout Ukrainian resistance.
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Last week, the Ukrainian military managed to attack a large Russian ship in port on the Black Sea coast.
“Everybody’s surprised how [the] Ukrainian army stay in front of one of the [most] powerful armies, [the] strongest armies in the world, [the] Russian army,” Klitschko said, noting that Russia has more money than Ukraine.
“We need the weapons. We need support with the weapons because weapons … is the main priority right now for Ukrainian soldiers, for our army,” he stressed. “We [are] ready to fight, but we need much more support.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces are under great strain in many parts of the country, and the U.S. as well as other countries have been accelerating their transfer of supplies and weapons.
Klitschko stressed that is “very important” to save the lives of the more than one million citizens in Kyiv.
He noted that 80 buildings were already destroyed from rockets and “Russian aggressors” and that “almost 300 people died in our hometown.”
The mayor’s brother, Ukrainian Defense Force member and fellow former world heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, told Bartiromo on Sunday, “We are fighting for our children, our families and our freedom.”
“We are fighting for our freedom and our existence,” he added, arguing that what Russian forces are doing to Ukrainian citizens is “a genocide.”
When asked if Ukrainian citizens have enough food, water and supplies, Wladimir said, “The situation is critical.”
“The country’s budgets are not filling up because the economy is down to nothing,” he said. “We have war in [the] entire country so the business is down.”
“It’s never enough,” he continued, noting that medical supplies and weapons are needed.
He then stressed that “we need any other supply and any support because, as I said, our economy’s down to nothing and this is crucially important with our allies that the support will continue coming because this war might last longer than we think.”
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The Kyiv mayor noted that reserves are available for a couple of weeks, but warned that Ukraine does not know “how long we have to defend our country and how long will be the war,” and, therefore, continued support from Western countries is critical.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.