Pakistan billionaire Mohammad Zahoor, the former publisher of Kyiv Post, has reportedly given Ukraine fighter jets to aid in their battle as Russia's invasion of the Eastern European country continues.
Citing Ukraine's TSN, Newsweek reported that Mr Zahoor's wife, Ukrainian singer Kamaliya Zahoor, said that her husband and other wealthy friends had been quietly helping Ukraine in its fight against Russia. She informed that her husband helped purchase two jets for Ukraine's air force.
“(Mohammad) gave me the green light to tell this. Because they hid these [actions]. They gave two fighter jets to Ukraine and help Ukraine," she said, as per the media outlet.
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It is to mention that since the Russia-Ukraine war broke, Mr Zahoor, who used to live in Ukraine and was the former owner of the Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Post, has been pushing to ensure the safe evacuation of Ukrainian citizens. The Pakistan-born British businessman has been reportedly attempting to mobilise funds and help evacuate refugees to the UK and other parts of Europe. As per Newsweek, he had also continued to meet with heads of state and other influential people to ensure safe passage for Ukrainians.
Speaking to Arab News in March, Mr Zahoor also called on the people of the world to support and side with Ukraine as it fights back against Russian aggression. "I am openly taking the side of Ukraine because after seeing [reports from] Western, Ukrainian and Russian media, I can see and decide who is telling the truth. This is the time actually for everyone to speak up for Ukraine otherwise every big country is going to swallow its next-door neighbour," he said.
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Meanwhile, Ukrainian resistance continues in Russian-occupied territories. While Moscow has stated it is engaged in a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” its neighbour, the West and Kyiv have called that a false pretext for invasion. But Russian forces continue to press their main offensive, trying to capture more territory in the eastern Donbas region which Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.
According to Reuters, Russian and Russian-backed forces are still in control of an area of Ukraine about the size of Greece along the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, and in Ukraine's east bordering Russia. But the Russian forces have been driven out of the area around the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in the northeast in the past two weeks.
