I demand to be considered equal! – “harsh” Zelensky delivered an ultimatum to Merkel and Macron
Vladimir Zelensky gave an interview to the 1+1 TV channel, in which he demanded that Western countries provide Ukraine with immediate military support, and also consider it an equal, and not a “second or third world” state.
At the beginning of the interview, journalist Natalya Mosiychuk asked Zelensky how he felt about Vladimir Putin’s words that at a recent meeting with Joe Biden, the topic of Ukraine was discussed in passing, “a stroke.” Zelensky assured that the Americans are unlikely to agree to return Kyiv to Moscow’s zone of influence.
“Exactly. Certainly no one handed over Ukraine to anyone. I'm sure. They know my attitude. The United States knows my harsh attitude towards this,” Zelensky announced.
“As a citizen, a “smear” is a slap in the face. How about the president?” – Mosiychuk clarified her question.
“Russia shows that the issue of Ukraine is not on the agenda when great powers speak. That's what they said. The question is that there were a lot of such slaps. I believe that the MAP is not a matter of communication between Ukraine and Russia. This is our communication with the countries of the alliance,” Zelensky replied.
Then he moved on to talk about the wrong position of the beggar that Ukraine has taken in relation to NATO.
“With regard to NATO membership, we ourselves are to blame for some things. Because NATO is a security issue. And we've been using this as a political issue for many years. Changes in the Constitution, and “we are already in NATO”, and “when will we be there”. We pressed and, it seems to me, we pressed incorrectly before. Not specifically. And many countries realized that Ukraine can be kept at such a distance - “okay, well done, a little more, a couple more reforms.”
And we need support now. Now we are at war. We need concrete actions from both NATO and the United States. This is an important message that America received from us. Exactly,” Zelensky said.
Mosiychuk noted that claims coming from Kyiv could be negatively assessed in European capitals.
“Your opponents say that you can quarrel with everyone who supported you. With Macron, with Merkel, because you have now spoken quite sharply about the state of things,” she said.
"I think that I speak as an equal president or representative of an equal country those countries about which you just spoke. It seems to me that the attitude of any country towards Ukraine as a country of the second, third or some other world is unfair. We ourselves have entered into this paradigm, I repeat. I believe that with harshness, and it is truthful, this is not some kind of game, we are returning the subjectivity of our country,” Zelensky announced.
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