Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has taken a hard line on Russia's policy of denial of facts.

Meanwhile, his deputy economy minister sees completely different hard facts and estimates the damage caused by the Russian military in the country to be at least a trillion dollars.

The sum could still increase, because according to Kiev, the Russian army is still working on the "minimum target of eastern Ukraine".

Meanwhile, Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer wants to try his hand at building bridges between Kyiv and Moscow and travels to the Kremlin.

Zelenskyy said in his video address on the night of Ukraine that while Ukraine is trying to bring to justice "every bastard who came into our country under the Russian flag and killed our people," Russia is trying to evade responsibility Monday.

"What is Russia doing?

What are his officials, his propagandists and the ordinary people doing who just repeat what they heard on TV,” Zelenskyy referred to the selective truth-seeking of the state-controlled Russian media.

“They justify themselves and deny.

You deny any responsibility.

You lie,” said Zelenskyj.

Zelenskyy: Russia cannot admit mistakes in Ukraine policy

In Zelenskyy's opinion, Moscow does not have the courage to admit its misguided policy in relation to its neighbors.

"They are afraid to admit that for decades they have taken wrong positions and expended colossal resources to support human zeros they aspired to build as future heroes of the Ukrainian-Russian friendship."

Moscow's attempt to build up its own people in Ukraine did not work.

Because these people “were only trained in stuffing money from Russia into their own pockets”.

And to cover up these mistakes, new mistakes were made.

But in doing so, Russia deprived itself of all political instruments and finally started this war.

In addition, Russia is trying to shift the blame for everything onto Ukraine.

"They snatched Crimea, we are supposedly to blame for that," said Zelenskyy.

“They destroyed every normal life in Donbass, we are supposedly to blame for that.

They killed people in our country for eight years, and we are allegedly to blame for that.” This also applies to the destruction of the strongest economic region in Eastern Europe and the destruction of the lives of millions of people.

"And finally they started a large-scale war against us, and again it is our fault." And all this out of "sheer cowardice," Zelenskyy summed up.

"And when cowardice increases, it turns into a catastrophe," said the head of state.

"When people lack the courage to admit mistakes, to apologize, to adapt to reality, they turn into monsters," he said, referring to the leadership in the Kremlin.

"And if the world ignores this, the monsters decide that the world must adapt to them." Nevertheless, the day will come when Russia will have to admit the truth.

Minister estimates damage in Ukraine at a trillion dollars

According to government estimates, Ukraine has suffered up to a trillion US dollars in damage from the invasion of Russian troops.

Deputy Economics Minister Olexander Griban said at a government meeting on Sunday, according to the Unian agency.

The losses are simply "colossal", the list is not yet complete.

"It's billions of dollars in damage, possibly up to a trillion dollars," Griban said, without providing any further evidence of his figures.