Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said skepticism about helping Ukraine harms every European country, because Russia opposes European rules and values, in an interview with DR Nyheder shared in a post on X.
A strong Ukraine is important and even necessary for Europe on practical grounds, Zelenskyy said.
If European help disappears, he warned, the consequences could only be dangerous or very dangerous.
In the dangerous case, Russia would continue its hybrid attacks on a massive scale, he said. He pointed to Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria, and to Germany and the Nordic countries, including Finland and Denmark. He called that the soft scenario.
In the very dangerous case, Russia would move deeper into Europe, he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants the Soviet Union back, Zelenskyy said, starting with influence over former Soviet countries, at the very least the Baltic states and Moldova.
Some of those countries are in NATO, so NATO would have to react, he said. All of Europe would get involved, and so would the United States. He also warned of danger at sea, saying Russia could block the Baltic Sea as it blocks the Black Sea.
Trading Land for Vague Security
Ceding Ukrainian land for peace is just abstract words, Zelenskyy said. It is not only about reality, he added, but even more about philosophy.
Putin spoke about Donbas but then decided to occupy Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, he said. His words were about Donbas, but the reality was about Kyiv.
Putin kept saying he was defending Russian-speaking people, Zelenskyy said, yet hundreds and thousands of people were tortured to death in Bucha and other places. That, he said, was not about Russian-speaking people.
He recalled American officials asking whether Ukraine could exchange Donbas for security guarantees. He said he asked them what that security would mean, and whether it meant NATO.
The answer, he said, was not NATO, but something similar to NATO. He said he pressed them on why the answer on Donbas had to be clear while the answer on security could be only similar.
Russia took Ukraine’s nuclear weapons, stopped its integration into Europe and kept it out of NATO, and in the end occupied it, Zelenskyy said. Nobody trusts Putin to stop if Ukraine leaves Donbas, he said. Putin would pause and then come back in one year, two years or five years, he warned.
Ceasefire First, Then Talks
The quickest way to end Russia’s war is to hold the positions and move to discussions, Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine has decided, he said: stop where the forces are, agree to a ceasefire, and go to the diplomatic track. That stage could last one month, two months or one year, or longer than expected today, he said. But the hot stage would end and people would stop dying.
Holding the line would allow talks on the contact line, a slower pace of mobilization and an economy that begins to work again, he said. Dialogue is better than guns, he added.
“That’s why the best way to end this war is to exchange guns for words.”
Many questions would still follow, he said, including how to stop, where to stand, the mandate of a monitoring mission and what would be demilitarized. Other questions would cover the role of Europeans, reconstruction and where the money would come from.
But that format, a ceasefire, is how the war stops, he said. If Putin refuses a ceasefire and wants a long plan first, covering difficult and sensitive questions before the war stops, it simply means he does not want to stop the war, Zelenskyy said.
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