By KYIV. Nov 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has said that he received a proposal to evacuate the population of Kyiv after the first Russian missile attack on the capital on the first day of the full-scale invasion.
"When Kyiv came under the first missile attack, there was a proposal to evacuate the capital – the entire population, close down all infrastructure, shops, turn off electricity supply. There could be no power and drinking water supply. That was on the first day of missile strikes," he said in an interview with the Ukrainian media on Wednesday.
However, the head of state did not mention who made the proposal to evacuate the capital.
According to the president, he asked in response, "Where should we evacuate it when there are missile strikes all over the country? Bulgaria, Poland?"
"You can come out and say – today there was a missile strike, we think there might be another one tomorrow. If there were no people in Ukraine, we would have lost it. Do you think that people with guns should defend the country? Don’t they have wives and children? Their families are their motivation. And if their families left, what are they defending? Yes, they will defend the land. If there were no people in Ukraine, we would have lost our state," Zelensky said.
