Zelenskyy says Kyiv security guarantees will only work if US provides them

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said security guarantees for Kyiv to end Russia's war would only be effective if the United States provides them, and that he hoped to meet US President-elect Donald Trump soon after his inauguration.

In an interview with US podcaster Lex Fridman published on Sunday (Jan 5), Zelenskyy said Ukrainians were counting on Trump to force Moscow to end its war and that Russia would escalate in Europe if Washington were to quit the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance.

Almost three years after Russia's invasion, the election of Trump, who returns to the White House on Jan 20, has sparked hope of a diplomatic resolution to stop the war, but also fears in Kyiv that a quick peace could come at a high price.

Zelenskyy used the three-hour interview published on YouTube to call for Ukraine's NATO membership, emphasising his belief that a ceasefire without security guarantees for Kyiv would merely give Russia time to rearm for a new attack.

The Ukrainian leader said the White House under Trump had a vital role to play in providing security guarantees and asserted that he and the US president-elect saw eye to eye on the need for a "peace through strength" approach to ending the conflict.

"Without the United States, security guarantees are not possible. I mean these security guarantees that can prevent Russian aggression," he said, tacitly acknowledging that Kyiv's European allies would be too weak militarily to manage on their own.

Zelenskyy made the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not interested in serious negotiations to end the war, and that the Kremlin leader would have to be compelled to stop and agree to a lasting peace.

The state of play on the battlefield is at its most challenging for Ukraine since the early months of Russia's 2022 invasion and Kyiv's largely outnumbered troops have been losing village after village in the eastern Donbas region for months.

Though he said it was up to the United States to determine its future, Zelenskyy cautioned that any decision by Washington under Trump to exit NATO would weaken the military alliance and embolden Putin in Europe.

"I'm simply saying that if it does (quit the alliance), Putin will destroy Europe," he said.

The Ukrainian leader said he needed to sit down with Trump to determine a course of action to halt the Kremlin and that Europe's governments also needed to have a voice in that process before Kyiv could sit down for talks with the Russian side.

UKRAINIAN VISIT

Trump, the Ukrainian leader added, had indicated when they spoke late last year that there would be an official Ukrainian visit to the United States soon after he takes office.

"He told me on the phone that my visit would be one of his first. This topic is important to him. I hope we will meet," he said.

The Ukrainian leader also said he would attend Trump's Jan 20 inauguration if he receives an official invitation.

The interview was published the evening after Ukrainian troops on Sunday launched a new offensive push in Russia's Kursk region where they carved out an enclave in a surprise incursion last August.

Ukraine has for months said Russia had deployed thousands of North Korean troops in the Kursk region to help its forces there.

Zelenskyy estimated that 3,800 North Korean troops had been killed or wounded in the fighting so far, but that he believed Pyongyang had the capacity to send many thousands more troops if it chose to do so.

He also said that North Korea had provided 3.7 million artillery shells to Russia so far, a figure he contrasted with the 1 million provided by the European Union last year. Reuters could not independently verify those figures.