Volodymyr Zelensky assures that the end of the war depends on the position of the West and Russian will

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that the end of the war depends as much on the West’s united stance to help Ukraine as on Russia’s willingness to come to the negotiating table.

“As for when this war can end, I think it depends on some things, on concrete things,” Zelensky was quoted as saying by Ukrainian agencies, during his virtual participation in a “Ukrainian breakfast” within the framework of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

It depends “in the first place, on the will of the different parties; the will of a united West in terms of Ukraine’s armament and financial strength and the will of a united West not to be afraid to fight Russia, to fight this hybrid war in different ways, not with its people, on everything,” he said.

“And it also depends on the will of Russia, because this war will end anyway,” he stressed.

He added that there is the “military” part of the war, with many dead among innocent civilians and soldiers, and later, he said he was sure, “in any case there will be a peace process and there will be a negotiating table, and there will be peace.”

The question is with whom, with which president of Russia Ukraine will negotiate, something that also depends on the current head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, he added.

As for whether it is possible to negotiate with Putin, Zelensky assured that the Russian president “does not fully realize what is happening” and “lives in his informational world and does not understand that Ukraine has no intention of going anywhere and he will make no concessions.”

He was also convinced that it only makes sense to negotiate with Putin and not with intermediaries, because “they are ‘nobody'”, adding that when the Russian president returns to the real world he will understand that many people and many innocent people are dying.

 

“If he can understand something, then surely he will realize that we must talk and end this war, started by them, by Russia, and nobody else. And then, perhaps, it will be possible to try, if it is not too late, to go down the diplomatic track,” he said.

He reiterated that it is possible to move from the stage of “bloody war” to the “format of diplomatic negotiations” with the participation of the presidents of Russia and Ukraine and strategic partners.

To do this, Russia should at least take “the correct step” of withdrawing troops to the demarcation lines before February 24, the day the Russian invasion begins, he said.

However, he said he saw no interest in the Russian side. (I)