Zelensky convinced Russia not ready for peace: “Putin wants to grab this land”

The leader said this in an interview with the Italian TV channel RAI, answering a question of the possibility of negotiations with Russia, Ukrinform reports.

"There is no disconnect in the fact that we need to proceed to the peace process. It's just that everyone needs to understand how it's happening and what the situation is. First. Russia does not want peace and neither do they seek peace. For them, peace is a loss. They are not ready for any peace. At first they spoke privately – they sent, let's say, different messages – but now they are talking about it publicly: ‘We are not going to stop, we have not yet completed our task.’ And their task, I emphasize, is to completely destroy Ukraine," the president said.

Zelensky believes Russia will eventually publicly admit they seek to destroy Ukraine.

"Believe me, some time will pass and they will say: 'Our task is to destroy Ukraine.' It was like this with everything. With Crimea – they seized it, but they said that it was not they who did it. And a year later they said: ‘It was us.’ With Donbas – ‘It's not us’, then they said: ‘It's us.’ At first they said Donbas and Crimea are Ukraine, and then they said: ‘No, this is Russia.’ It will be the same with the peace process. That’s because Putin's main objective remains the same: to destroy us, to take away our independence, to grab this land to make Ukraine part of his Russia, his empire," Zelensky emphasized.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, said Ukraine would not negotiate with Russia until it felt much stronger on the battlefield, so the United States and Western allies should provide military assistance to Ukraine in order not to have to stop Russia elsewnere.

Photo: President’s Office