The mayor of the Ukrainian city of Lviv has demanded that Boris Johnson seize the mansions of Russian oligarchs living in London – and use them to accommodate refugees fleeing Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
Speaking to the Guardian, Andriy Sadovyi said Ukraine was facing a “David and Goliath” struggle against one of the world’s most powerful armies. “Ukraine personifies David,” he said. “We have to win. What we have done so far has surprised the world.
“It’s already part of victory. Can you imagine the same morale and combat spirit in any other country? We are experiencing historic times for humankind. Putin will go down in history side by side with Hitler and other war criminals.”
Lviv, a city about 40 miles from the border with Poland, has been flooded with refugees since Russia’s attack began last week. It is yet to be targeted by the Kremlin – but Sadovyi said it was only a matter of time before he did.
“Putin has not bombed us so far. He’s committing genocide in Kharkiv, Kyiv and elsewhere. But I think his plan is to occupy the whole territory of Ukraine and to recreate the USSR. He’s taken Belarus. Now he wants us.”
Sadovyi was scathing about the failure of western leaders to take action before Putin invaded. “They expressed deep concern. We heard a lot of blah, blah, blah. We need less talk and more action,” he said,
He added: “Joe Biden was US vice-president when Putin took Crimea. What we need now is for Boris Johnson to start freezing the bank accounts of Russian oligarchs in London and to seize their luxury villas. It would be better to use them to house Ukrainian refugees.
“Johnson needs to call Putin and say: ‘Sorry Volodya, things have changed.’”
Ukraine’s leader has denounced Russia’s escalation of attacks on crowded cities as a blatant terror campaign, while Biden warned that if the Russian leader didn’t “pay a price” for the invasion, the aggression would not stop with one country.
“Nobody will forgive. Nobody will forget,” Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky vowed after Tuesday’s bloodshed on the central square in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, and the deadly bombing of a TV tower in the capital.
He called the attack on the square “frank, undisguised terror” and a war crime.
And Biden used his first State of the Union address to highlight the resolve of a reinvigorated Western alliance that has worked to re-arm the Ukrainian military and adopt tough sanctions, which he said have left Russian president Vladimir Putin ”isolated in the world more than he has ever been”.
“Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson, when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos,” Biden said.
“They keep moving. And the costs and threats to America and the world keep rising.”
Related: ‘It’s our job’: BBC’s Clive Myrie explains why he is staying in Kyiv
