In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky laid out his vision to end the war in his country in a partnership with President Donald Trump. Without Ukraine on the table.
“I will never accept any decisions between the US and Russia regarding Ukraine. “This is a war in Ukraine against us, and it is our human loss.”
This week, efforts to end the war in Ukraine have seen members of the Trump administration, several GOP senators, and European leaders, Zelensky, gather in Germany for the Munich Security Council.
When he spoke about the possibility that Ukraine and Russia would begin negotiations to end the war, Zelensky asked European allies to join the negotiation table, and if Russia does not halt or the US withdraws The group warned about what will happen to NATO.
Regarding the intelligence news, Ukraine is jointly sharing with allies about the ongoing military exercises of Russian troops in Belarus, and Zelensky said on the prospects of a massive Russian invasion elsewhere in Europe as early as this summer. I warned him.
“We don’t know where he’s going because we knew he wasn’t successful in occupying us. Zelensky was interviewed when he chose to use his native language in Ukrainian. One of several times through, Zelensky is Ukrainian, and there is a risk that this could be Polish and Lithuania.
In English, Zelensky repeated a message to Vice President JD Vance, whom he met on Friday in Munich, saying that if the US withdraws from NATO, “it will be the destruction of NATO.” He predicted that without the threat of retaliation from the US military, Russia would begin to occupy Europe, particularly some of the former Soviet countries. He added that European NATO members do not have the military capabilities to defend themselves without the US.
“They’ll start with those countries… Soviet descent, small countries that were in the Soviet Union,” Zelensky said. “But Europe doesn’t answer because they don’t have it. They start protecting themselves. Each country defends itself.”
He added that he couldn’t predict how much of Putin in Europe was trying to capture, but that “possibility” could not be predicted as always hanging on the continent.
Zelensky’s comments come when the Trump administration outlined the goals for peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia this week, and Trump revealed he spoke to Putin on the phone on Wednesday.
“As we agree, we want to stop millions of deaths in the war with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump writes about the true society. “We agreed to work very closely, including visiting each other’s countries, and each team agreed to start negotiations soon.”
In an interview Friday, Zelensky thanked Trump and other American leaders for their “support” in Ukraine, but added that there is no “a world leader who can do business with Putin without us.”
Still, Ukrainian leaders believed Trump to have caused fear for Putin.
“(Putin) doesn’t want peace,” Zelensky said. “But I think he’s a bit scared of President Trump, and I think the president has this opportunity.
However, Zelensky begged Trump to approach conversations with Putin and other Russian leaders while maintaining his loyalty to Ukraine. In an interview, he emphasized that it is “very difficult” for Ukraine to survive without US military aid, addressing the level of trust he currently has in partnership with the US.
“I was very hoping that Ukraine would be prioritized (for Trump, not Russia, and I hope we are more important,” the Ukrainian president said. “We’re not as big as Russia, but strategically, I think Ukraine is more important to the US because we are truly partners, allies and share common values. “I hope so. I hope so. Yes, I hope. I expect that. I count on it very much.”
“I trust President Trump because he is the president of the United States. Your people, your people, voted for him. I respect their choices.”
He also warned that no one, including Trump, should trust Putin’s words in their faces.
“Don’t trust Putin, the Ukrainian president said, citing that the Ukrainian president will approach a peace deal with Russia in 2019 before the contract collapses.
Zelensky also responded to some points that President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegses made this week, saying that Hegses hopes Ukraine will reclaim all the territory that Russia has seized since 2014, and that it is “unrealistic.” “It’s a target.”
“We want sovereignty and prosperous Ukraine, like you. But we must start by realizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 border is an unrealistic purpose. “No,” Heggs said in a speech at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday. And after a call with Putin, Trump repeated the sentiment, saying that Russia “fought for the land” and “lost many soldiers.”
Zelensky told Welker on Friday that Ukrainian laws prevent the state from realizing that Russia owns former Ukrainian land.
“Judicially, we don’t recognize… our occupied territory, like Russian territory. He spoke in English, but as part of a diplomatic contract in which Ukraine can join NATO, the occupation was carried out. He was happy to discuss the territory that gave up the area.
“Yes, we need to return it diplomatically. Yes, we can. If we are in NATO, we can understand why it is so diplomatically, it is very understandable, Zelensky said, prioritizing the word ” Of course we won’t lose people.”
In the future, Ukraine is looking for “good, diplomatic” ways to recoup territorial losses, but added, “people are the most important today.”