Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he and Ukraine understand Russia “much better” than President Donald Trump, particularly regarding the war.
In an interview with ABC News, Zelensky touched on a variety of war-related topics after Ukraine’s daring covert drone assault on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet that destroyed six to 10 bombers in Russia’s scarce force. The Ukrainian president delivered several rebukes to Trump throughout, bashing his characterization of the war and suggesting he didn’t understand the Russians.
“I feel strongly Putin does not want to end the war without [the] total defeat of Ukraine,” Zelensky said, strongly disagreeing when presented with Trump’s assertion that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants peace. “With all due respect to President Trump … I think it’s just his personal opinion. Trust me, we understand the Russians much better, the mentality of the Russians, than the Americans understand the Russians. I know for sure Putin doesn’t want to stop the war.”
Zelensky delivered another strong rebuke to Trump over an analogy he made regarding the war in Ukraine, comparing it to two children fighting at the park.
“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy. They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart,” Trump said in the Oval Office, referring to Russia and Ukraine.
“We are not playing in the park with the Russians like two boys, two kids. Putin is not a kid,” Zelensky responded, calling Putin a “maniac.”
“We are not kids with Putin at the playground in the park. This is why I am saying he is a murderer who came to this park to kill the kids,” he added.
Zelensky admitted his Feb. 28 meeting with Trump in the Oval Office didn’t go well and that he didn’t know if their relationship had been repaired. However, he sounded a hopeful note, pointing to his meeting with the president at Pope Francis‘s funeral as a positive development.
“Fifteen minutes in the Vatican, tet-a-tet, one-to-one … did more to establish trust than the meeting with many people present in the Oval Office,” Zelensky said, characterizing it as “productive.”
The Ukrainian president also sounded a much different tone than the early days in the war, admitting that the war likely wouldn’t end in a Russian defeat.
He told the outlet that “the majority of wars were ended even at the stage when both sides, both parties, did not trust each other.”
“There were intermediaries, there was a strong position of third countries … if it’s not a complete capitulation [as with] Germany at the end of the Second World War,” Zelensky said. “The majority of wars were finished with some kinds of agreements … [with] strong third parties involved who can put pressure on the aggressor.”
TRUMP SAYS PUTIN PLANNING RESPONSE TO UKRAINE DRONE ATTACK
Though he said the war wouldn’t end with World War II-style capitulations, the Ukrainian president still insisted that Russia wasn’t winning the war, though he believes Trump believes as much.
Russia is expected to undertake a massive retaliatory strike against Ukraine at any moment in the coming days in retaliation for Ukraine’s drone attack against its bomber fleet. Zelensky warned Ukrainians to pay attention to air raid sirens in the coming days and take proper precautions.
