Mr. Oleksandr Merezhko:

I thank the Chair and our dear friends for giving me this unique opportunity to talk to them, because communication with them is extremely important for Ukraine. To my colleagues and me, Ireland is our reliable friend. It is a big privilege and pleasure to talk to and address the committee.

I will try to describe the current situation. As the committee can perhaps see, we have a blackout right now in Kyiv. It became a problem and we have to use candles. Unfortunately, we do not have power in the building and street where I live, which is the central part of Kyiv.

The humanitarian situation is very difficult because, starting on 10 October, Russia regularly bombed Kyiv. The targets of the Russian army are civilian objects and infrastructure. Russia’s goal is to destroy our infrastructure completely and cause a humanitarian crisis in Kyiv. We have even started to discuss seriously the issue of evacuating a city with a population of 3 million, which might be a big problem. The very fact we are discussing this issue is very telling and illustrates-----