Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainian Prez Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls on Swiss govt to freeze bank accounts of Russian oligarchs

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday called on the Swiss government to freeze the bank accounts of all Russian oligarchs.

"In your banks are the funds of the people who unleashed this war. Help to fight this. So that their funds are frozen. It would be good to take away those privileges from them," said Zelenskyy via livestream to thousands of anti-war protesters in the Swiss city of Bern, reported Swiss public broadcaster SRF.

SRF also reported that the Ukrainian president criticised the Swiss multinational food conglomerate Nestle, which has decided not to withdraw from Russia for the time being, as opposed to many other international companies.

Earlier, Zelenskyy accused the Kremlin of deliberately creating "a humanitarian catastrophe " and appealed again for Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with him to prevent more bloodshed.

He added that the Russian forces are blockading his country's largest cities to wear the population down into submission, but he warned that the strategy will fail and Moscow will lose in the long run if it doesn't end its war.

"Just picture for yourself that in that stadium in Moscow there are 14,000 dead bodies and tens of thousands more injured and maimed. Those are the Russian costs throughout the invasion," Zelenskyy said in an address to the nation recorded outside the presidential office in Kyiv.

(With AP inputs)

Published on: Saturday, March 19, 2022, 10:09 PM IST