Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday said the ongoing war in Gaza cannot be compared with the Russia-Ukraine war that has lasted 21 months.

Responding to a PREMIUM TIMES reporter who asked if the incidents in Gaza caused any nostalgic feeling, he said the two wars were not comparable because the world has always known that the tension between Israel and Hamas would escalate some day.

“Ukraine is in a full-scale war with Russia… it is a war on one state by another, unprovoked,” Mr Zelenskyy said, alluding to Hamas’ attack on Israel that led to the recent tragedy that has gone on for almost six weeks now.

He acknowledged that the loss of lives anywhere in the world is a tragedy. However, he said, the war in Gaza could have been prevented but it was not because some people do not want it to discontinue.

Mr Zelenskyy also accused Russia and Iran of benefitting from the war in Gaza.

“Everyone knows of the conflict but few are interested in stopping it for good. You can see that Russia and its allie’s in Iran are involved in it.”

He said Russia consistently devices ways of distracting the world from its operations in Ukraine and it does this by fomenting unrest in different parts of the world including the use of Wagner Group in Africa.

The Russia-Ukraine war which started on 24 February 2022 has seen the displacement of about 3.6 million people according to IOM tracking matrix and led to the death of over 9,000.

The war in Ukraine continues in the east and south of this country.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine is willing to yield to the other with several peace talks and negotiations failing to hold.

Ukraine said it is preparing itself for Russia’s attack on its energy facilities as it did last summer, especially in the capital, Kyiv.

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Mr Zelenskyy, according to the Washington Post on 9 October, told NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly that Hamas and Russia are the “same evil, and the only difference is that there is a terrorist organisation that attacked Israel and here is a terrorist state that attacked Ukraine.”

In the last UN General Assembly résolution that called for a humanitarian truce in Gaza given the casualties, Ukraine abstained from voting.

Defending its decision at the UN, Mr Zelenskyy told African journalists in Kyiv that Ukraine acted very fair in its decision to abstain because the Canadian amendment to the resolution to condemn Hamas for its attack on Israel which is similar to Russia’s attack on his country was excluded.

Over 11,000 people have died in Gaza as a result of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza including attacks on hospitals and schools.