Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy informed ABC Information’ Martha Raddatz his nation is prepared for a ceasefire brokered by the United States, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of aiming for the “complete defeat” of Ukraine.
Within the unique sit-down interview in Kyiv with Raddatz, co-anchor of ABC Information’ “This Week,” Zelenskyy stated Putin is bored with peace and that solely “exhausting strain” led by the U.S. and joined by European allies would render Putin to be “pragmatic” in his pondering.
“Then they’ll cease the battle,” Zelenskyy stated.
“I’m satisfied that the president of america has all of the powers and sufficient leverage to step up,” Zelenskyy informed Raddatz.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks with Martha Raddatz of ABC Information on This Week.
ABC Information
Zelenskyy’s pleas for the tip of preventing in Ukraine — a constant message since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022 — got here as Russia bombarded Ukraine, launching 472 drones final week.
The Ukrainian air pressure stated it was the largest drone assault of the war.
“Most likely folks do not understand that,” Zelenskyy stated. “They’ve to grasp that we’re underneath strikes, underneath assault each day. And also you would possibly keep in mind that once they had been speaking about ceasefires, momentary ceasefire[s], they nonetheless continued attacking and launching strikes.”
Operation ‘Spiderweb’: ‘We’ve got to organize such plans, and we’re not stopping’
Raddatz’s reporting in Ukraine comes per week after the nation took maybe its most important offensive motion within the battle when it struck Russian airfields so far as Siberia in a coordinated, shock drone assault that Ukraine stated worn out a 3rd of Russia’s strategic bombers, or some 40 plane.
The U.S. assesses Ukraine broken far fewer plane, estimating 10 Russian planes had been destroyed within the assault, a U.S. official informed ABC Information.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks with Martha Raddatz of ABC Information on This Week.
ABC Information
Zelenskyy informed Raddatz he noticed the movies “that the entire world was watching” after the assaults — footage displaying Ukrainian drones rising from containers, together with cellular cottages transported by Russian autos.
The Russian drivers “did not know something,” and the operation used solely Ukrainian weapons, the Ukrainian president stated.
Zelenskyy famous the key operation, deliberate over 18 months and dubbed “Operation Spiderweb,” struck solely navy targets and was meant to enhance Ukraine’s place on the negotiating desk.
“We will solely counter” Russia’s aggression “with pressure,” Zelenskyy stated, “and we understood if [Ukraine’s special services could] take some steps, we are able to cease [Russia] of their tracks, and possibly then they are going to be prepared for some form of diplomacy and talks.”
The U.S. has held bilateral talks with every Ukraine and Russia since President Donald Trump took workplace, and delegations of the 2 warring nations have gathered collectively in Istanbul as not too long ago as Monday, a day after Operation Spiderweb.
The Kremlin referred to as the wide-ranging assault an act of terrorism, a cost Zelenskyy rejected.
“It is [a] clear and clear navy operation. It is a step that confirmed everybody that we don’t need this battle. We don’t need to combat,” he stated.
“We’ve got to organize such plans, and we aren’t stopping,” he added. “As a result of … we’ve got no estimation what [tomorrow will bring]. We do not actually know if they’ll cease this battle.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks with Martha Raddatz of ABC Information on This Week.
ABC Information
Zelenskyy endorses unconditional ceasefire, rejects Trump’s ‘playground’ characterization of the battle
Zelenskyy referred to as for a ceasefire all through the dialogue, telling Raddatz that Ukraine is able to lay down its arms with out circumstances — if Russia will, too.
The Ukrainians would forgo a safety assure from the U.S., which they’ve referred to as important if they are not invited to hitch the North Atlantic Treaty Group, and settle for a 30-day cessation of hostility, Zelenskyy stated.
Zelenskyy constantly steered diplomacy, and the facility to finish the battle, will run by the White Home, the place in February Trump scolded Zelenskyy as having “no playing cards” in discussions of a peace settlement.
Such obvious stress was not obvious in an Oval Workplace assembly between Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday, the place Trump stated the battle in Ukraine is like “two younger kids preventing like loopy” and “generally you are higher off letting them combat for some time after which pulling them aside.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks with Martha Raddatz of ABC Information on This Week.
ABC Information
Merz pushed again on the president’s assertion, and Zelenskyy stated he took difficulty with it, too.
“President Zelenskyy, you converse so powerfully concerning the loss in your nation and what your folks have suffered,” Raddatz stated to Zelenskyy in Kyiv solely two days later. “Do you assume the president is getting that message when he says issues like ‘it is two kids preventing’?”
Zelenskyy described the “limitless” ache of a Ukrainian man who had misplaced his kids and spouse in a missile strike.
Zelenskyy stated the person informed him he was “in search of them simply beside me” in his flat nonetheless after they died. “And they aren’t there. … I nonetheless really feel that it was a nightmare. It wasn’t actual. It was a dream, a nasty dream.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks with Martha Raddatz of ABC Information on This Week.
ABC Information
“Do individuals who have not misplaced the children really feel one thing like that? Most likely not,” Zelenskyy stated. “Can president who’s in America really feel precisely like this father? No.”
He closed the anecdote with a forceful rejection of Trump’s analogy for the war.
“We aren’t children with Putin on the playground within the park. That is why I’m saying he’s a assassin who got here to this park to kill the children,” he stated.
Zelenskyy steered his relationship with Trump has improved for the reason that two presidents met a month into Trump’s presidency within the Oval Workplace, the place Zelenskyy informed Raddatz “cameras do not lie.”
The Ukrainian chief acknowledged the assembly was not useful, saying he was “emotional” as he went to Washington “defending the reality.”
But their April meeting at the Vatican, the place each leaders attended the funeral of Pope Francis, was “productive,” Zelenskyy stated.
“Fifteen minutes in Vatican, tet-a-tet, one-to-one … did extra to determine belief than the assembly with many individuals current within the Oval Workplace,” he added.
He stated he now “need[s] to consider that we’ve got regular, equal skilled relationship.”
Nonetheless, Zelenskyy stated he disagreed with Trump’s view of Putin’s intentions in Ukraine.
“President Trump informed our Terry Moran in an interview that he does consider Putin desires peace,” Raddatz stated. “You assume he is flawed.”
“With all due respect to President Trump, after all — I feel it is simply his private opinion,” Zelenskyy stated. “I really feel strongly that Putin doesn’t need to end this battle. Inside his thoughts, it is not possible to finish this battle with out complete defeat of Ukraine.
“Belief me, we perceive the Russians significantly better, the mentality of the Russians, than the Individuals perceive the mentality of Russians. We’re neighbors for ages,” the wartime president, elected in 2019, informed Raddatz.
The total interview between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Martha Raddatz, co-anchor of This Week with George Stephanopoulos, will air on Sunday morning on This Week.
Workplace of the President of Ukraine
Requested to characterize Trump’s relationship with Putin, Zelenskyy stated it was “longer” than his personal with the forty fifth and forty seventh American president, suggesting their engagements preceded Trump’s election as president.
“I feel for Trump, enterprise is necessary,” he stated, hinting on the pressure in what he referred to as the president’s “financial” relationship with Putin and even the diplomacy of the second.
“For Trump, it is necessary to type of prolong the geopolitical line of relationship between America and the Soviet Union again then,” Zelenskyy stated.
Zelenskyy requires US sanctions, ‘intermediaries’ to result in ceasefire
The Ukrainian president pitched a plan of action for his allies within the battle, endorsing a crippling sanctions package led by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Trump ally, that may slap 500% tariffs on any nation that buys Russian vitality merchandise.
“It would not matter who desires, other than america, to use sanctions in opposition to Russia,” Zelenskyy stated. “If it is not america, there shall be no actual impression.”
Zelenskyy stated Kyiv had accepted ceasefire proposals underneath the Trump and Biden administrations and famous that Moscow has turned every provide down. Whereas he argued that peace can solely be “sustainable and lengthy” by a “sturdy safety assure,” he stated Ukraine can be prepared to stop preventing with no U.S. vow to defend it sooner or later from Russia.
“Will we just like the ceasefire with out safety ensures?” Zelenskyy stated. “Not very a lot, however nonetheless, we assist it.”
Ukraine has been invited to the upcoming NATO summit on the Hague within the Netherlands, NATO Secretary Normal Mark Rutte stated this week. Trump shall be in attendance for the high-stakes assembly, the White Home stated.
Zelenskyy framed his case for U.S. strain on Russia in historical past, telling Raddatz that “the vast majority of wars had been ended even on the stage when either side, each events, didn’t belief one another.”
“There have been intermediaries, there was a powerful place of third nations … if it is not an entire capitulation [as with] Germany on the finish of Second World Struggle,” he stated. “Nearly all of wars had been completed with some sorts of agreements … [with] sturdy third events concerned who can put strain on the aggressor.”
He described battle’s “lengthy aftertaste” between its battered events, and he appealed for “strain” on Moscow quite a few instances all through his interview with Raddatz.
“Are there sufficient levers and powers to cease this in america? Sure, I’m satisfied that the president of america has all of the powers and sufficient leverage to step up,” Zelenskyy stated.
“He can unite round him different companions like European leaders,” he concluded. “They [are] all trying on the President Trump as a pacesetter of the free world, a free, democratic world, and they’re ready for him.”
