Zelensky: West ‘afraid’ of both Russian, Ukrainian defeat
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the West for imposing a ban on using Western-donated arms to strike targets inside Russia, saying the West is “afraid” of both Russian and Ukrainian defeat.
Zelensky told AFP in an exclusive interview that Ukraine’s Western backers have left his country in a “nonsense situation” where it gets enough support to avoid total defeat, but not enough to achieve victory.
“The Russians can attack us on our territory, which is their biggest advantage, but we can’t use Western weapons against their systems located in Russia. We have no right,” the Ukrainian president said.
“We want the war to end with a fair peace for us,” while “the West wants the war to end. Period. As soon as possible. And for them, this is a fair peace,” Zelensky added.
“They are helping Ukraine to keep going but not to win the war,” Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, told NBC News. “And they don’t seem to actually want to give Ukraine what it needs to win the war.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited Kiev earlier this week, said Washington has “not encouraged or enabled strikes outside of Ukraine, but ultimately Ukraine has to make decisions for itself about how it’s going to conduct this war.”
However, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh on Thursday clarified that Washington’s position that Kiev should not target Russia with US-supplied weapons remains unchanged. Such arms can only be used to “take back Ukrainian sovereign territory,” Singh stressed.
Zelensky has repeatedly asked the West, particularly the US, for long-range missiles and advanced fighter jets to challenge Russia’s air superiority and compensate for failure on the ground.
Zelensky said he expects Russia to step up its offensive in the northeast and warned Kiev only has a quarter of the air defenses it needs to hold the front line.
Russian forces, which had made only moderate advances in recent months, launched a surprise assault in Kharkiv region on May 10 that has resulted in their biggest territorial gains in a year-and-a-half.
Zelensky said Russian troops managed to advance between five to 10 kilometers (3-6 miles) along the northeastern border before being stopped by Ukrainian forces, but added that the region could be the “first wave” in a wider offensive.
“I won’t say it’s a great success (for Russia) but we have to be sober and understand that they are going deeper into our territory,” he said.
He doubled down on pleas to allies to send more air defense and fighter jets to combat Russia’s air superiority as the war grinds through its third year.
“Today, we have about 25 percent of what we need to defend Ukraine. I’m talking about air defense,” he said.
Ukraine needs “120 to 130” F-16 fighter jets or other advanced aircraft to achieve air “parity” with Russia, Zelensky said.