"The war will end when US President Trump together with the Europeans put Putin in his place and force him to conduct real negotiations." Volodymyr Zelensky gave interviews to ARD and CNN.
"The war will end when US President Trump together with the Europeans put Putin in his place and force him to conduct real negotiations," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. On the eve of the fourth year since the start of the full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine, Zelensky gave an interview to CNN and ARD.
"If we give Putin what he wants, we will lose everything"
He made it clear that he was ready to sit at the negotiating table with Putin and even discuss Russia's territorial claims. But not at any price. "We cannot give him everything he wants. Because he wants to occupy us. If we give him what he wants, we will lose everything - all of us, the people, will have to flee or be Russians," Zelensky emphasized.
The Ukrainian president addressed his American counterpart Donald Trump directly and urged him to stay on his side. "A democratic state is fighting against one person. Because this person is a war. Putin is a war. Everything revolves around him, around this one person. And his country - his entire country is in prison," Zelensky said in an emotional interview with CNN's Clarissa Ward.
Ukraine is ready to freeze the conflict along its current borders, the interview showed, but it will not withdraw from the areas in eastern Donetsk region that are still under its control.
Russia is demanding that Ukraine give up about 20% of the region that is still under Kiev's control, including the "fortress belt" of industrial cities, railways and roads that form the backbone of Ukraine's defense and supply the front line, Zelensky explained.
"We have been through this war all these years, and that's why we simply cannot hand them our country on a platter," he stressed. "200,000 people live there. What should I tell them and what should our soldiers say: "Okay, bye, bye. We are leaving. From now on, you are Russians?"
Zelensky thanks Germany and sharply criticizes Orban
Regarding the potential agreement, the Ukrainian president expects concrete guarantees of what the US and the European Union will do if Russia attacks them again.
Zelensky thanked EU countries for their help - especially Germany, which provides the most funds to Ukraine. "I am grateful to Germany for taking the lead in Europe in supporting Ukraine," he told the German public-law media outlet ARD.
But the Ukrainian president did not spare his criticism of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. "When he blocks 90 billion euros (aid for Ukraine), for us he is on the same level as Putin and Lukashenko", said Zelensky, who also insists that the European Union speed up the accession process for Ukraine and open the negotiation chapters. "We are carrying out these reforms in wartime. We achieve more in wartime than the candidates for membership in peacetime", he stressed.
We are not losing the war, Zelensky is categorical
The four years of war are basically a loss for the aggressor Russia, the Ukrainian president believes. "Russia is fighting to destroy us as an independent state - but we did not allow it", Zelensky commented to ARD and defined the claims that Ukraine is currently losing the war as "Russian narrative".
Ukraine has recently managed to regain 300 square kilometers of territory in Zaporizhia. She relies on the fact that the "Starlink" satellites were turned off for the Russian army. Until recently, Russia actively used them for communication, but Elon Musk's company decided to suspend its access. Now only Ukrainian units can use it, with their terminals included in the so-called "white list," ARD points out.