THANKS TO OUR TEAMS
Zelensky with News Corp & Fox Corp team
By Jerome Starkey
PRESIDENT Zelensky thanked reporters for their bravery after inviting Lachlan Murdoch, the Chief Executive Officer of Fox Corp and the Chairman of News Corp, to visit Ukraine.
Mr Murdoch took with him a journalist from each company — Benjamin Hall of Fox News and Jerome Starkey, Defence Editor of The Sun.
In a press release Mr Zelensky “thanked the representatives of the media group for comprehensive coverage of Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression and for telling about Russian atrocities despite the risks to themselves”.
Last March, a group of Fox News journalists came under Russian fire in Horenka, outside Kyiv. Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian fixer Oleksandra Kuvshynova were killed.
Brit Benjamin Hall was severely wounded, losing part of a leg on one side and a foot on the other and left with limited function of a hand and one eye.
President Zelensky awarded him the Order of Merit, III class, for his “outstanding personal contribution to strengthening interstate co-operation, support for Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity”.
It was his first visit to Ukraine since he was catastrophically injured.
The President thanked Mr Murdoch for his visit and “emphasised that it is a very important signal of support at the time when the world’s attention is blurred by other events”.
Jerome, The Sun’s award-winning Defence Editor, has reported from the Ukraine front line since the war started.
Mr Zelensky said: “All this time, journalists, cameramen, editors, photographers, drivers have been on the front line.
“It is thanks to journalists from many countries that we now have such support in the world.”
The lionhearted leader said at least “five or six” plots to kill him had been foiled by Ukraine’s intelligence services.
He said his people were tired of “permanent air raids”, tired of being shelled, tired of having their homes destroyed and their loved ones killed.
But he added: “If you ask them are you willing to give up to Russia, our lands? Are you ready to talk to Russians on how to end all this?
“Are you ready for compromise, personally, with Putin and are you tired of this? They will tell you we are not tired. We are ready to stand further.”
On the attempts to topple him, Mr Zelensky said the first plot caused a panic — like the first outbreak of Covid. But after that they were not so bad.
Speaking to The Sun at his fortress Kyiv headquarters, Mr Zelensky admitted he had lost track of all the attempts to kill him since Russia unleashed a full-scale invasion on February 24 last year.
The President said: “The first one is very interesting, when it is the first time, and after that it is just like Covid.
“First of all people don’t know what to do with it and it’s looking very scary.
“And then after that, it is just intelligence sharing with you detail that one more group came to Ukraine to [attempt] this.”
Russian special forces parachuted into Kyiv to kill him on the first day of Putin’s invasion last year.
- Mr Zelensky’s bodyguards sealed off his office with makeshift barricades and bits of plywood.
- His closest aides were issued with rifles and body armour. One said the office was like a “madhouse”.
Almost two years later, Zelensky said Russia still “wants very much” to topple him from power.
The leader said: “The name of operation is Maidan 3.
- It is meant to change the president.
- It’s bye bye. Maybe it’s not by killing.
- I mean it’s changing.
- They will use any instruments they have.“
- So that’s the idea, to the end of the year.
- They have even named the operation.
- But you see we can live with it.”
The SBU said it arrested a woman accused of passing details of his visit to Russia.
One of Mr Zelensky’s aides said at least a dozen attempts had been made on his life within the first few weeks of the war.
- A number of pro-Russian collaborators have been killed or injured by car bombs and booby traps believed to be the work of Ukrainian special forces and partisans.
- “There are some moments which we are not discussing.“Not only inside Russia, there are things we are not discussing on our temporarily occupied territories.”
Many of the windows were blocked up with sandbags and a number of long, high-ceilinged corridors were kept in darkness for security, his aides said.
Troops in a major counter- offensive advanced only ten miles in five months.
- He acknowledged the lack of progress had discouraged some allies who doubt if Ukraine can expel Russian forces.
- And he admitted: “We need more successful results on the battlefield.”
- But he denied his top general’s claims that the war had reached a stalemate.
“As regards the sky, there is no stalemate. Russians have more power in that.
“And really, how to move forward when you can’t control the sky?”
But Mr Zelensky vowed to fight on and insisted the war was “not a movie”.
- A series of missile and drone strikes on Russian warships forced Putin to withdraw his Black Sea fleet eastwards, allowing Ukraine to open a grain export corridor that hugs the sea’s western shore.
- Mr Zelensky said: “We really destroyed part of the Russian fleet.
- “We did it. We moved them. They don’t have such total influence on the Black Sea region.”
- He admitted people were weary of war but said there was no appetite to sue for peace.
- “We do not believe that Putin, nor Russia, we do not believe that they want to finish the war. They want to kill us. And we want justice.
- “Therefore, we are not speaking about peace at any price.
- “We are talking about a just peace for it is very important when we are speaking about weariness, where does it come from.
“Is it difficult on the battlefield? Yes. But making friends or entering diplomatic table now with Russia? No!”
To watch The Sun’s full interview with Zelensky, click here.
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