Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky calls on the West to ban all Russians from travelling to their countries
In response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, has urged the West to impose travel restrictions on all Russian citizens.

In an effort to further punish the Kremlin for its brutality, the beleaguered president pleaded with world leaders to forbid any residents of the invading country from entering their countries.

The most crucial sanctions, he told the Washington Post, “are to block the borders because the Russians are stealing someone else’s territory.”

He continued by saying that until they change their mentality, Russians should be made to “live in their own universe.”

The head of Ukraine wants a complete ban on the purchase of Russian energy and a year-long closure of the West’s borders to Russian nationals.

While Russian airlines have been banned from flying over much of Europe and the US, there is no blanket ban for citizens travelling.

Some say refusing entry to Russians would likely impact those who are leaving the country precisely because they disagree with Putin’s regime.

But Zelensky said: ‘Whichever kind of Russian… make them go to Russia.

‘They’ll understand then. They’ll say, ‘This [war] has nothing to do with us. The whole population can’t be held responsible, can it?’ It can. The population picked this government and they’re not fighting it, not arguing with it, not shouting at it.’

In the last 24 hours, at least three Ukrainian civilians were killed and 23 others were wounded by Russian shelling, including an attack not far from a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.

Putin’s men fired over 120 rockets from Grad multiple rocket launchers at the southern town of Nikopol, which is across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

Several apartment buildings and industrial facilities were damaged, he said.

Ukraine and Russia accused each other in recent days of shelling the nuclear plant, which is the largest one in Europe, and increasing the risks of a nuclear accident.

In his nightly video address, Zelensky invoked the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, which at the time was a Soviet republic. He called for new sanctions against Russia ‘for creating the threat’ of another nuclear disaster.

‘We are actively informing the world about Russian nuclear blackmail – about the shelling and mining of the Zaporizhzhia NPP facilities,’ Zelenskyy said.

‘Russia will not pay attention to words and concerns…The Chernobyl disaster is an explosion in one reactor; the Zaporizhzhia NPP is six power units.’

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