#456 – Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Ukraine, War, Peace, Putin, Trump, NATO, and Freedom
Zelensky says Kyiv security guarantees will only work if US provides them
In an interview with US podcaster Lex Fridman published on Sunday, Zelensky said Ukrainians were counting on Trump to force Moscow to end its war and that Russia would escalate in Europe if Washington were to quit the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance.
Almost three years after Russia’s invasion, the election of Trump, who returns to the White House on Jan. 20, has sparked hope of a diplomatic resolution to stop the war, but also fears in Kyiv that a quick peace could come at a high price.
Zelensky used the three-hour interview published on YouTube to call for Ukraine’s NATO membership, emphasizing his belief that a ceasefire without security guarantees for Kyiv would merely give Russia time to rearm for a new attack.
The Ukrainian leader said the White House under Trump had a vital role to play in providing security guarantees and asserted that he and the US president-elect saw eye to eye on the need for a “peace through strength” approach to ending the conflict.
“Without the United States, security guarantees are not possible. I mean these security guarantees that can prevent Russian aggression,” he said, tacitly acknowledging that Kyiv’s European allies would be too weak militarily to manage on their own.
Zelensky made the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not interested in serious negotiations to end the war, and that the Kremlin leader would have to be compelled to stop and agree to a lasting peace.
The state of play on the battlefield is at its most challenging for Ukraine since the early months of Russia’s 2022 invasion and Kyiv’s largely outnumbered troops have been losing village after village in the eastern Donbas region for months.
Though he said it was up to the United States to determine its future, Zelensky cautioned that any decision by Washington under Trump to exit NATO would weaken the military alliance and embolden Putin in Europe.
“I’m simply saying that if it does (quit the alliance), Putin will destroy Europe,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader said he needed to sit down with Trump to determine a course of action to halt the Kremlin and that Europe’s governments also needed to have a voice in that process before Kyiv could sit down for talks with the Russian side.
UKRAINIAN VISIT
Trump, the Ukrainian leader added, had indicated when they spoke late last year that there would be an official Ukrainian visit to the United States soon after he takes office.
“He told me on the phone that my visit would be one of his first. This topic is important to him. I hope we will meet,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader also said he would attend Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration if he receives an official invitation.
The interview was published the evening after Ukrainian troops on Sunday launched a new offensive push in Russia’s Kursk region where they carved out an enclave in a surprise incursion last August.
Ukraine has for months said Russia had deployed thousands of North Korean troops in the Kursk region to help its forces there.
Zelensky estimated that 3,800 North Korean troops had been killed or wounded in the fighting so far, but that he believed Pyongyang had the capacity to send many thousands more troops if it chose to do so.
He also said that North Korea had provided 3.7 million artillery shells to Russia so far, a figure he contrasted with the 1 million provided by the European Union last year. Reuters could not independently verify those figures.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has said he urged US President-elect Donald Trump to hand over frozen Russian assets, so Kiev can buy more US weapons and use the reserves as a security guarantee in potential peace negotiations with Moscow.
Around $300 billion in Russian central bank funds were blocked by the West after the escalation of conflict between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022. More than two thirds of the sum is being held in the EU. . .
During Trump’s term, “a lot of money for... military industry, in Ukraine or in Europe, with India, Saudi Arabia, and the US” will be required, the Ukrainian leader insisted.
“So the question is where you will get it. My answer was to Trump. I said this is one of the security guarantees. Take $300 billion of frozen Russian assets. We will take it. Take money, what we need for our domestic production, and we will buy all the weapons from the US,” he said.
Such a deal “will be very good for your industry, for the US. We will put money there. Russian money, not Ukrainian, not European…. They have to pay for this… This is one of the security guarantees,” Zelensky explained.
- Last month, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico accused the Ukrainian leader of trying to bribe him with €500 million from frozen Russian assets in order to persuade Bratislava to support Kiev’s bid to join NATO.
According to Fico, Zelensky made the offer in an attempt to sweeten the pill for Slovakia, which depends on Russian energy, after Kiev’s decision not to prolong a gas transit deal with Moscow. The Slovak premier said that he refused the “absurd” proposal.
Russian officials have repeatedly said the seizure of its funds would amount to theft and further undermine global trust in the Western financial system. Moscow has also warned that if necessary, it will respond in kind to such a move by the US and EU.
No comments:
Post a Comment