Ukraine’s president told a French newspaper Wednesday that his country does not have the military might to take back its Russian-occupied territories.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Le Parisien that Ukraine’s military does not possess the strength it needs to expel Russian forces from the Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine that is has held since 2014.
Ukraine’s constitution prohibits it from forfeiting its territories, he added.
“We can only count on diplomatic pressure from the international community to force [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to sit down at the negotiating table,” Zelenskyy said.
If the West had given Ukraine all the defense systems it needed when Ukraine first asked for them, Ukraine would not be in the situation it is in now with Russia, he said.
Russia occupies about 18% of Ukraine.
NATO and Ukraine
Zelenskyy arrived in Brussels on Wednesday where he met with NATO chief Mark Rutte and other European leaders as Ukraine seeks to bolster its defenses against Russian forces.
As Rutte greeted Zelenskyy for their meeting, the NATO secretary-general said he did not want to speak publicly about when the peace talks would begin and if European peacekeepers would be involved because doing so would play into Putin’s hands.
Rutte said Wednesday that Ukraine’s partners will do whatever they can to provide Ukraine with everything it needs to defend itself against the nearly three-year war with Russia, including air defense and other weapons system.
On Tuesday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was in urgent need of military aid, especially air defense systems.
“We must do everything possible to destroy Russia’s ability to wage war from as far away as possible,” he said. “For this, we need more drones, more modern artillery, and long-range missiles.”
Wednesday’s talks come a month before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office, bringing uncertainty about the level of continued U.S. support for Ukraine from the new administration.
Among those expected to meet with Zelenskyy in Brussels were German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Ahead of the talks, Russia launched another round of overnight aerial attacks.
Ihor Taburets, governor of Ukraine’s Cherkasy region, said Wednesday on Telegram that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 13 drones. He said there was no damage to infrastructure in the area.
Khmelnytskyi Governor Serhii Tiurin said Wednesday that Ukrainian forces shot down two drones.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday it destroyed two Ukrainian aerial drones over the Belgorod region, along with a drone over Bryansk and another over Kursk.
Moscow attack
Russia said Wednesday it detained a suspect in the killing of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces.
Authorities described the suspect as a citizen of Uzbekistan who was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services to carry out the Tuesday attack in Moscow.
An official with Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, said Tuesday the agency was behind the attack and called Kirillov a “war criminal and an entirely legitimate target.”
Several countries, including Britain and Canada, had sanctioned Kirillov, 54, for his actions in Moscow’s nearly three-year war in Ukraine.
Some information for this story came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
