‘Putin the ‘serpent’ wants to swallow, but Ukraine isn’t a ‘rabbit'”
“Stopping the war is an opportunity to reorganize the Russian military”… “The need to build an air defense network”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on the 22nd (local time) that a ceasefire without reclaiming the territories lost in the Russian invasion would only give an excuse to prolong the war.
President Zelensky told the Wall Street Journal reporters at the Kiiu Presidential Palace on the same day, saying, “The ceasefire will be a time of rest for Russia to reorganize and replenish its forces.”
Responding to an interview in the now trademark military uniform, President Zelensky compared Russia to a sperm whale, the largest among toothed whales, and Russian President Putin to a snake.
President Zelensky said, “The sperm whale that swallowed the Kherson and Zaporiza regions in southern Ukraine wants to stop the conflict, but after a break of two or three years, they will try to occupy the other two regions.” He said he was 100% sure.
After forcibly annexed Crimea in southern Ukraine in 2014, Russia also acquired Kherson, Zaporiza, Luhansk and parts of Donetsk in southeastern Ukraine in this war.
“President Putin opens his mouth like a serpent and tries to eat Ukraine, which he considers to be a rabbit, but it will become clear that Ukraine is not a rabbit and cannot be swallowed,” Zelensky said.
“The Ukrainian people think that they should first retake the territory and then engage in negotiations,” he said.
President Zelensky’s remarks agree to some extent with the opinion of the Ukrainian people.
In a WSJ survey of 1,05 Ukrainian adults at the beginning of last month, 89% of respondents said they were against giving up their territory to Russia and ending a ceasefire.
In addition, President Zelensky refuted Putin’s claim that a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine had virtually reached an agreement in late March, at the beginning of the war, but that Ukraine broke it as ‘complete nonsense’.
“Before the invasion of Russia, I tried to find a diplomatic solution somehow, but President Putin didn’t even want to talk to me for three years,” he said.
President Zelensky also emphasized that the war was not so bad.
In particular, it was diagnosed that the high-speed mobile artillery rocket system (HIMARS) supported by the United States was helpful in preventing Russian attacks in the eastern Donbas region.
He said, “The number of deaths has greatly decreased as we have not fallen behind Russia in firepower battles. In May and June, when battles were active, our military killed 100 to 200 a day, but now about 30 are losing their lives,” he said. did.
He also argued that the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine after the war would be greater than their own.
He added that once the Donbass front is stabilized, plans are being considered to send Ukrainian troops to other areas to begin full-scale territorial recovery.
President Zelensky expressed his gratitude to Western countries for helping their country in a time of economic hardship as energy and food prices soared as the war lasted nearly five months, while calling for more military support, such as air defense systems.
“Once an air defense system is in place, places far from the front will be safe from Russian missile attacks,” he said.
/yunhap news