The Ukrainian president spoke candidly
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin has started World War Three.
Speaking to the BBC, the Ukrainian premier put out a resilient front, saying that Ukraine would win the war and stood fast in his stance against paying the price for a ceasefire deal.
Speaking about the notion of a third world war, Zelenskyy told the BBC: “I believe that Putin has already started it.
“The question is how much territory he will be able to seize and how to stop him… Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life and change the lives people have chosen for themselves.”
Zelenskyy said the only answer to Russia’s pressure was intense military and economic pressure.
Speaking about the idea of conceding land in the regions of Donetsk and Kherson in a ceasefire deal, Zelenskyy told the BBC that he would see this as “abandonment”.
He said: “I see this differently. I don’t look at it simply as land. I see it as abandonment – weakening our positions, abandoning hundreds of thousands of our people who live there.
“That is how I see it. And I am sure that this ‘withdrawal’ would divide our society.”
Zelenskyy does not believe that land concessions would satisfy Putin anyway, suggesting that Ukraine would just be the start.
He said: “It would probably satisfy him for a while… he needs a pause… but once he recovers, our European partners say it could take three to five years.
“In my opinion, he could recover in no more than a couple of years. Where would he go next? We do not know, but that he would want to continue [the war] is a fact.”
He added: “I believe that stopping Putin today and preventing him from occupying Ukraine is a victory for the whole world. Because Putin will not stop at Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian president said that, for him, victory means restoring normal lives for Ukrainians and stopping the killing.
He continued: “Returning to the just borders of 1991 [the year Ukraine declared its independence, precipitating the final collapse of the Soviet Union] without a doubt, is not only a victory, it’s justice.”
He added: “We’ll do it. That is absolutely clear. It is only a matter of time. To do it today would mean losing a huge number of people – millions of people – because the [Russian] army is large, and we understand the cost of such steps. You would not have enough people, you would be losing them. And what is land without people? Honestly, nothing.”
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