Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has appealed to Donald Trump, saying he wants the US president to “stay on our side.” He said the United States is too big and too important to refuse support in the war. And he hopes Trump will support Ukraine.
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“The US should stay with a democratic country that is at war with one person. Because this person is a war. Putin is a war. Everything concerns him. Everything concerns one person. And the country, his entire country, is in prison,” Zelensky told CNN. “If they really want to stop Putin, America has the power.”
When asked whether he believes Trump is putting enough pressure on Putin, Zelenskyy replied: “No.”
In a wide-ranging and at times emotional interview, Zelensky acknowledged that Ukrainians are exhausted. But giving in to Putin's demands is simply not an option, he said.
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“We can't just give him everything he wants. Because he wants to occupy us. If we give him everything he wants, we will lose everything — all of us people will have to flee or be Russians,” Zelensky said.
Trilateral peace talks involving Ukraine, Russia and the United States have yet to yield a breakthrough. Zelensky told CNN that security guarantees, especially the question of how Ukraine's allies would respond if Russia invaded Ukraine again in the future, remain a stumbling block.
He said he was constantly told that Russia simply would not start another war.
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“That’s not an answer for me. I’m sorry,” he said. “There are positive aspects to these security guarantees, that’s true. But I want a very specific answer: what (our) partners will be prepared to do if Putin attacks again. That’s what Ukrainians want to hear.”
There are also differences over the sequence of steps toward peace, Zelensky said. Trump wants Zelensky to sign a peace deal with Russia and an agreement with the United States and European countries that would provide security guarantees to Ukraine, all at the same time, ideally at a big ceremony marking the end of the war.
But Zelensky insists that security guarantees must first be agreed upon and ratified by the U.S. Congress. He said this would give the Ukrainian people confidence that they can rely on their allies in the future, having been let down too many times in the past.
Russia demands that Ukraine give up about 20% of the region still under Kyiv's control, including the “belt of fortresses” of industrial cities, railways and roads that form the basis of Ukraine's defense and provide the front line.
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“Russia wants (us) to just withdraw our army… We can't be such, sorry, stupid guys. We're not children. We've been through this war for all these years, so we can't give them the country on a plate,” he said. “For the people who live there, it's very important what kind of security they'll have… There are 200,000 people living there. What should I say (to them) and what should our soldiers say?”
Previously, “FACTS” wrote that Putin unwittingly created the strongest Ukraine in history.