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Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said the path to ending the war with Russia would require diplomacy and an international agreement with security guarantees from other countries after every military victory.
“Victory will be bloody,” he said in an interview with Ukrainian television on Saturday, “and the end will surely be in diplomacy.”
But he and other leaders stressed that Russia should not control a territory it has seized during hostilities. Although Russian forces failed to capture the capital Kyiv and the northeastern city of Kharkiv, they captured the cities of Kherson and Mariupol in southern and southeastern Ukraine.
Bloody fighting continues in eastern Ukraine, which the United States sees as part of Moscow’s strategy to annex large parts of the country and host leaders loyal to Russia in a move that repeats the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014.
“We want everything back, and Russia does not want anything back,” Zelensky said in an interview. “And here’s what it will be in the end.”
His comments come as Russia’s invasion falters and military leaders reconsider their strategy, firing commanders and increasingly relying on artillery and long-range weapons after losing thousands of troops.
Russia’s prospects for victory are fading
Although analysts and experts see Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long-term goals as unsustainable, the invasion continues to tax Ukraine, especially in the eastern regions of Donbass and Luhansk, where Russian troops are concentrated.
Zelenski said on Sunday that about 100 soldiers a day are killed in the severely affected east.
The southern port city of Severodonetsk – one of the last major cities in the eastern province of Luhansk, which is still under Kyiv’s control – is emerging as the latest hotspot in hostilities.
Regional authorities have called on the thousands left in the former 100,000-strong city to flee as heavy shelling continues after Russian forces destroyed a bridge used for evacuation and aid delivery on Saturday.
Sergey Haidai, Governor of Luhansk Region, said that “if they destroy another bridge, then the city will be completely cut off, unfortunately.”
Lyudmila Denisova, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, warned in a Telegram news release that Severodonetsk was becoming the “new Mariupol” – another southern port city now in ruins with civilians cut off from basic needs after months of bombing .
Russia claims that Mariupol is completely under its control after Ukraine last week suspended the protection of the steel plant, where civilians and fighters have been hiding for weeks.
The mayor of Mariupol, where the plant is located, warned that the city was “on the verge of an outbreak of communicable diseases” because of the war.
Many city residents do not have access to water or functioning sewerage systems, Vadim Boychenko said in a statement published Saturday in the Telegram, while summer rains are likely to spread diseases from hastily dug shallow graves in the water supply.
Zelensky expressed hope for the fate of hundreds of Ukrainian forces at the plant, stepping up the prospect of future talks with Russia.
“I said during the bombing that if the people of Azovstal are destroyed, there will never be discussions with Russia. “Today we saw that they have found a way to let these people live,” Zelenski said the interview aired on Saturday.
“Time changes things,” he added. “There are different situations. It all depends on the weather. ”
During a surprise visit, Polish President Andrzej Duda addressed the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv on Sunday, the first personal presence of a foreign leader since the start of the war. He reiterated Poland’s support for Ukraine and called on Russia to withdraw.
“Only Ukraine has the right to decide its future,” Duda said in a translation. “The international community must demand that Russia end its aggression and leave Ukraine completely.
Zelenski has promised to grant more rights to Polish citizens after a new law in Poland granted rights to millions of Ukrainian citizens who have sought refuge in Poland since Russia’s invasion on February 24th.
“This is an unprecedented decision, according to which our citizens who were forced to flee to Poland due to Russian aggression will be given almost the same rights and opportunities as Polish citizens. Legal residence, employment, education, health care and social benefits, “Zelenski said, according to the text of the speech.
The United States, meanwhile, has stepped up support for Ukraine after President Biden signed a $ 40 billion package on Saturday to provide new military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
Suspension of US military aid to Ukraine
Zelensky said more military aid to Ukraine would help the country reopen its ports and ease pressure on world food prices following the fight against suspended exports of grain and other agricultural products.
Military and State Department officials are considering sending special security units to the newly opened embassy in Kyiv, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
A US official confirmed the discussions, but stressed that the idea was only preliminary.
“We are in close contact with our State Department colleagues on potential security requirements now that they have resumed operations at the embassy in Kyiv, but no decisions have been made – and no concrete proposals have been discussed – at the top levels of the the return of US troops to Ukraine for one purpose or another, “said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.
A delegation of US diplomats will be in The Hague from Sunday to Wednesday to discuss with our allies “our response to the atrocities committed in Ukraine” and other conflicts, as well as efforts to “bring the perpetrators of atrocities to justice”, The State Department said in a press release.
Ukrainian authorities have prosecuted three captured Russian soldiers for war crimes, and the Biden administration has backed steps by Ukraine’s chief prosecutor to investigate Russia’s actions in the war.
Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska, in a rare joint appearance with her husband during a pre-recorded television interview, described in detail the consequences of the invasion on her family. She said she had hardly seen her husband since the start of the war and joked that the interview is tantamount to a “meeting” on television.
“Our family was torn apart, like any other Ukrainian family,” Zelenska said, later rejecting an interviewer who suggested her husband had been taken from her.
“No one is taking my husband, not even the war,” Zelenska replied.
Christine Armario, John Hudson, Annabel Chapman, Victoria Bisset and Brian Peach contributed to this report.
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