Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an exclusive interview Friday with Newsmax, said he believes President Donald Trump can strongly push Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the bloodshed in Ukraine, but it won't be easy.
"Trump can do it," Zelenskyy told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" from the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. "And Europe will help him a lot if he will allow them. I think Trump can do it. He's strong. He's smart. If he will understand — or I mean, maybe he understands, but I don't see it, I don't hear it, but maybe it will be. Or maybe it's his plan, I don't know.
"But he can do it [by putting] on Putin all the sanctions. He can then give us all the [aid] that he can ... and of course, when we speak about just peace for Ukraine, we understand that we don't have power to push them out from all our territory. We have to push them out with diplomacy and with our partners, but not to lose."
Trump on Wednesday spoke by phone to Putin and Zelenskyy and urged that negotiations begin immediately to end the war, which will mark its third anniversary Feb. 24. Although Zelenskyy expressed confidence in Trump's ability to reach a peace deal, he said Trump cannot deal with Russia first.
"I think he doesn't know everything because we didn't have possibility to speak more," Zelenskyy said. "It's not because of him, and it's not because of me. It's because of the situation. We need more time to understand what's going on. And I need him on our side, and I need very much him to understand what's going on.
"He is sure that he will have a deal with Putin, and I think this is the problem. He has [to] make a deal, not with Putin, with us, and then pressure Putin. Because any negotiations without us, we will never accept because the war is in Ukraine, not somewhere [else]."
Zelenskyy added another issue is that he doesn't believe Putin wants the war to end.
"Why he is spending so much money?" Zelenskyy asked. "Why is his military budget increasing year to year if this person wants to stop the war? He's a liar. He's a killer. He doesn't want to stop the war.
"We have to start from the very beginning with the understanding what's going on the battlefield. Of course, [Trump and his team] understand a lot of things, but not everything. And they have some relations with Russia or had before the full-scale invasion. And they think that they can make a deal. And I hope so that this team and President Trump will strongly push Putin to stop the war. But we will see.
"I think it's not it's not simple. I think it's a big problem with Putin. He doesn't want to stop the war. And I think that there are a lot of challenges [for] the future."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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