[ad_1]
On a train from Sumy to Kiev, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Russia will be needed by Ukraine unless his country wins a long battle in a key city in the east. It warned that it could begin to build international support for a possible deal — an unacceptable compromise. He also invited the Chinese leader, who has long been allied with Russia, to visit.
If Bakhmut Falls to Russian Forcestheir president, Vladimir Putin, “will sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China, to Iran,” Zelensky said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.
“If he feels blood, if he smells that we are weak, he will push, push, push.”
The Ukrainian leader told the Associated Press on a train ride across Ukraine, heading for nearby cities in some of the fiercest fighting and other cities where his country’s forces successfully repelled a Russian invasion. The AP is the first news agency to travel extensively with Zelensky since the war began just over a year ago.
Since then, Ukraine, backed by many in the West, has surprised the world with its resistance to the larger and better-equipped Russian military. Ukrainian forces held the capital Kiev and pushed Russia back from other strategically important areas.
But as the war enters its second year, Zelensky lives in relative comfort and safety far from the front lines with the military and civilian Ukrainians, especially the millions who have fled the country. I noticed a focus on keeping people both motivated.
Zelensky is also fully aware that much of his country’s success is due to a wave of international military support, particularly from the United States and Western Europe. Some in America, including the US president and current 2024 candidate, are wondering whether Washington should continue to provide billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s likely rival for the Republican nomination, has also suggested that defending Ukraine in a “territorial dispute” with Russia is not a key national security priority for the United States. he later retracted the statement After facing criticism from other corners of the Republican Party.
Zelensky didn’t name Trump or other Republican politicians — the numbers he’ll have to deal with if they win the 2024 election. He said he was worried that he might be affected by
“The United States really understands that if they stop helping us, we can’t win,” he said in an interview. I sat on my narrow bed and sipped my tea.
The president’s carefully coordinated rail travel was an amazing journey across the warring nations. Mr. Zelensky, who has become a famous face around the world for his tenacity on a country-by-country basis, has used his morale-boosting journey to wield considerable influence in areas close to the front lines.
He traveled with a small cadre of advisers and a large group of heavily armed security officers dressed in battlefield weariness. His destinations included ceremonies marking his first year since the liberation of the Sumy town, as well as a visit to troops stationed at front-line positions near Zaporizhia. Each visit was kept secret until his departure.
Zelensky recently made a similar visit near Bakhmutwhere Ukrainian and Russian forces were locked in a grinding and bloody battle for months. , Zelensky warned that any defeat at this stage of the war could jeopardize Ukraine’s fierce fighting momentum.
“War is a pie, a piece of victory, so you can’t take a step. A small victory, a small step,” he said.
Zelensky’s comments acknowledged that losing the longest war ever, the seven-month battle over Bakhmut, would be more of a political defeat than a tactical one.
He predicted that pressure, both from the international community and at home, would soon come from the defeat at Bahmut. “Our society pushes me to compromise with them.”
So far, Zelensky says he doesn’t feel that pressure. The international community has rallied around Ukraine following Russia’s aggression on February 24, 2022. In recent months, a parade of world leaders has visited Zelensky, Ukraine. Most of them travel in trains similar to those used by Zelensky to cross the country.
In an interview with the AP, Zelensky passed on his invitation to Ukraine to one of the prominent and strategically important leaders who has yet to travel: Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We are ready to meet him here,” he said. “I want to talk to him. I had contact with him before the full-blown war. But in the last year, over a year, I haven’t.”
For decades, China, which is economically aligned and politically favorable to Russia, has provided Putin’s diplomatic cover by establishing an official stance of neutrality in war.
Xi visited Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, raising speculation that Beijing may be ready to provide Moscow with the weapons and ammunition it needs to replenish its depleted stockpiles. But Xi’s trip ended without such an announcement. A few days later, Putin announced that he would deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, which borders Russia and brings the Kremlin’s nuclear stockpile closer to NATO territory.
Zelensky suggested Putin’s move was intended to distract from the lack of assurances he received from China.
“What do you mean? It means the visit is not good for Russia,” Zelensky speculated.
The president has predicted very little about the biggest problem at stake in war: how it will end. However, he said he was confident his country would win through a series of “small victories” and “small steps” against “a very large country, a large enemy and a large army”, but “a small An army with a heart.”
And Ukraine itself? While Zelensky acknowledged that the war “changed us,” he said it ultimately made his society stronger.
“It could have been done to divide the country or in another way to bring us together,” he said. Thank you – all partners, our people, thank God, everyone – that we found this path at this crucial moment for our country. You saved our country, you saved our country, we are together.”
___
Julie Pace is Senior Vice President and Editor in Chief of AP. Hanna Ahrirova is her AP correspondent based in Ukraine.
[ad_2]
Source link
