Ukraine warns of new ‘Wall’ in Europe

Invoking the fall of the Berlin Wall, he urges Scholz to tear down a wall between peace and strife

Ukraine’s leader on Thursday accused Moscow of building a new Cold War wall across Europe “between freedom and bondage”.

Three weeks into their devastating invasion, Russian forces also stood accused of bombing a theatre sheltering many civilians and marked with the word “children”.

Kyiv emerged from a 35-hour curfew to its own fresh destruction, as Russian troops strive to encircle the Ukrainian capital as part of their slow-moving offensive.

In besieged Mariupol to the south, from which officials say 30,000 civilians have now fled, rescuers were combing through the smoking rubble of the Drama Theatre.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the “number of dead is not yet known” at the theatre, but the airborne attack showed “Russia has become a terrorist state”.

Mr. Zelensky addressed the German Parliament a day after a speech to the U.S. Congress, when he secured $1 billion in new U.S. military aid, including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles used against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

Mr. Zelensky reached back to that Cold War era as he drew on a 1987 speech in Berlin by U.S. president Ronald Reagan: “Dear Mr. Scholz, tear down this wall,” he implored German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.