Battle-hardened Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has shrugged off repeated Russian attempts to assassinate him as nothing worse than a COVID attack.
The lion-hearted leader said Ukraine’s intelligence services had foiled at least “five or six” plots to kill him.
In a world-exclusive interview, Zelensky also said that Ukraine’s will to defeat Vladimir Putin’s Russia remains strong and that “on morality, there is no stalemate.”
He said his people were tired of “permanent air raids,” tired of being bombed, tired of their homes being destroyed and their loved ones killed. But he added: “If you ask them, are you willing to give up our lands to Russia? Are you ready to talk to the Russians about how to put an end to all this? Are you willing to make a personal compromise with Putin and are you tired of it?
“They will tell you that we are not tired. “We are ready to take another step.”
“The first one is interesting”
Speaking at his headquarters in the Kiev fortress, Zelensky admitted that he had lost track of all attempts to kill him since Russia unleashed a full-scale invasion on February 24 last year.
He said: “The first one is very interesting, when it’s the first time, and then it’s like COVID.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he has lost count of the number of Russian assassination plots he has survived since the invasion began in 2022. Volodymyr Zelenskyy/Instagram Zelensky meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Kiev on November 20, 2023. Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP
“First of all, people don’t know what to do with it and it’s very scary.
“And after that, it is just intelligence to share with you details that one more group came to Ukraine to [attempt] this.”
Russian special forces parachuted into kyiv to kill it on the first day of Putin’s invasion.
His bodyguards closed off his office with makeshift barricades and pieces of plywood.
Zelensky met with NewsCorp Chairman and Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch, Fox News reporter Benjamin Hall, who was injured in Ukraine, and Sun reporter Jerome Starkey in Kiev, Ukraine. Instagram/Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Zelensky and his closest collaborators received rifles and bulletproof vests.
One said the office was like a “madhouse.”
But when British and American officials offered to get the president out of the capital (amid fears he could fall within hours), he responded with the legendary line: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Later, as battles raged outside Kiev, Zelensky left the compound to film a defiant selfie video that rallied Ukraine’s resistance by showing he was still in the capital.
Zelensky defiantly revealed his location to Russia after the invasion began in February 2022. Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Ukrainian soldiers positioned in central Kiev on February 25, 2022 after the Russian invasion began. AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti
‘Operation: Maidan 3’
Nearly two years later, Zelensky said Russia still “really wants” to remove him from power.
He even knows the codename of their latest mission to overthrow him and their deadline is the end of the year.
He said: “The name of the operation is Maidan 3.
“They intend to change the president. It’s goodbye.
“Maybe it’s not killing. I mean it’s changing. They will use all the instruments they have.”
He ruled out holding elections scheduled for next year, insisting they were illegal under martial law, impossible because of the war and would divide the country as people focused on fighting Russia.
Zelensky with Ukrainian troops at the scene of a battle in Bucha on April 4, 2022. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky Pro-Russian troops on top of a tank in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on March 1, 2022.REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko
Wearing a sweatshirt with Ukraine’s trident symbol, he admitted that his country’s counterattack this year had not gone as well as he had hoped.
Troops in a major counteroffensive advanced only 10 miles in five months.
He acknowledged that the lack of progress had discouraged some allies who doubted Ukraine could expel Russian forces.
And he admitted: “We need more successful results on the battlefield.”
But he denied his top general’s claims that the war had reached a stalemate.
Zelensky praised “brave” reporters for covering the Ukraine war. Instagram/Volodymyr Zelenskyy
He said: “In morality, there is no dead end.
“We are in our house. The Russians are in our land. Therefore, there is no deadlock in this.
“As far as heaven is concerned, there is no dead end. The Russians have more power in that.
“And really, how do you move forward when you can’t control the sky?”
The US Congress also blocked $60 billion in aid plans amid Republican claims that the war in Ukraine would become a “forever war.”
Black Sea Hits
But Zelensky vowed to keep fighting and insisted that the war “was not a movie.”
And he said the lack of progress on land was offset by successes in the Black Sea, which he said was also part of the counteroffensive.
A series of missile and drone attacks on Russian warships forced Putin to withdraw his Black Sea fleet eastward and allowed Ukraine to open a grain export corridor hugging the sea’s western coast.
Zelensky said he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin does not want to end the war.Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
Zelensky said: “We really destroyed part of the Russian fleet.
“We did it. We moved them. They don’t have such total influence in the Black Sea region.”
He admitted that people were tired of war, but said there was no desire to sue for peace.
And he added: “We do not believe that Putin or Russia want to end the war.
“They want to kill us. And we want justice. Therefore, we are not talking about peace at any price.
“We are talking about a just peace, because it is very important when we talk about fatigue, where it comes from.
“Is it difficult on the battlefield? Yes. But make friends or enter the diplomatic table with Russia now? No!”
Jerome Starkey is the defense editor of the UK Sun.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn