No one believes that Putin will stop if we leave Donbas, - Zelenskyy
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that handing over the Donbas to Russia would not guarantee Ukraine's security, but would only give Putin time to prepare for a new attack.
The head of state made this statement in an interview with DR Nyheder, according to Censor.NET.
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"Giving up Ukrainian land for the sake of peace are just abstract words. This is not just about reality, but more about philosophy. Putin spoke about Donbas, but then decided to occupy Kyiv, our capital.
His words were about Donbas, but the reality was about Kyiv. He constantly claimed he was defending Russian-speaking people, and then he massacred hundreds and thousands of people in Bucha and elsewhere. So it wasn’t about Russian-speaking people," he explained.
Zelenskyy said that the Americans asked, "Can you trade the Donbas for security?"
"I replied immediately, ‘Can you tell me what that means? What kind of security? NATO?’"
"Not NATO, but something similar to NATO."
"Something similar? But you don’t want the answer regarding Donbas to be ‘something similar.’ You want a clear answer regarding Donbas. That’s your goal. And that’s Putin’s goal today. What will you do if we have security guarantees, but not NATO?" he emphasized.
The president also recalled that the Russians had taken Ukraine’s nuclear weapons.
"I am not a supporter of nuclear weapons. I think the world would be a better place without them. But the Russians took our nuclear weapons, didn’t they? They did. Then they halted our integration into Europe, then prevented us from joining NATO. And ultimately, they occupied us. That is precisely why this is an abstract question.
No one believes that Putin will stop if we leave Donbas. He’ll take a break. And then he’ll come back in a year, two years, or five years. And who will be to blame?" he concluded.
