President Zelenskyy: Peace Is A Huge Compromise, The Horrific Atrocities Of Russian War Crimes!

The host opens by asking President Volodymyr Zelenskyy how he is really doing. Zelenskyy answers that it is “hard,” explaining that he feels he is surviving alongside his country and its people. He says he cannot live without hope and still believes that good will win, even though he can be shattered internally by the war’s losses. He insists that the suffering of families who lose children, parents, spouses, or siblings is much greater than his own. Zelenskyy describes visiting the site of a missile strike on a playground, where children and adults were killed within seconds. He says parents saw the deaths from their windows, and that toys were brought to the site alongside flowers. He also says he rarely sleeps, speaking every night with air-defense operators about moving defenses between regions. The most painful moments come when he gives Ukraine’s highest award to parents whose child died as a soldier. He recalls a strong father quietly asking, “Can we hug?” Zelenskyy says his children keep him grounded: he tries to set them an example of courage without pretending not to feel pain.

Zelenskyy says he belongs to a generation that lived across two systems: he was born in Soviet Ukraine but grew up in an independent Ukraine. He describes his family in Kryvyi Rih as ordinary and not wealthy, though his father was an honest professor. He credits his parents with giving him an education, proper values, and love. His children, by contrast, were born into an independent Ukraine and have a clearer national identity without the “shades of gray” he experienced. As a young man, Zelenskyy considered becoming a diplomat or border guard, studied law, and then moved toward media. At 17 he joined comedy, mainly as a scriptwriter, and continued until about 26, when he started his own company. He won Ukraine’s “Dancing with the Stars” at 28 and voiced Paddington Bear in Ukrainian. He later acted in films and starred in “Servant of the People” as a history teacher who accidentally becomes president. The idea had stayed with him for 10–12 years before he thought it matched Ukraine’s changing mood. After Russia occupied Crimea and parts of Donbas, he felt betrayed and increasingly wanted to leave business and entertainment. The television show’s popularity, political satire work, social instability, and his own determination converged, leading him to register Servant of the People as a real political party.

When asked when the Russia-Ukraine war began, Zelenskyy says the decisive starting point was Russia’s 2014 occupation of Crimea. He calls it a “creeping occupation” because Russian forces appeared in unmarked uniforms, later nicknamed “little green men,” while Ukrainian authorities did not issue clear orders to defend the territory. Looking back, he believes Ukraine’s failure to push back then helped make the later full-scale invasion possible. Zelenskyy frames Putin’s project as an attempt to reconstruct the Soviet empire. He says empires depend on control, isolation, and an information vacuum, whereas people eventually want freedom, their own language, culture, and political identity. He argues that Putin’s Soviet and KGB background, and his description of the Soviet Union’s collapse as the twentieth century’s greatest catastrophe, reveal his desire to reverse that collapse. Ukraine is especially important because it was the Soviet Union’s “forge of talent,” with major universities, scientists, engineers, rocket production, and nuclear capabilities. Zelenskyy rejects Putin’s claim that modern Ukraine was created by Bolshevik Russia. He points to Ukrainian churches and the thousand-year-old state of Kyivan Rus, arguing that Ukraine had its own civilization before Russia existed. He says Putin used the language issue to divide Ukrainians and presented the invasion as protection for Russian speakers, although Russian-speaking Ukrainians had not been deprived of their rights.

Zelenskyy says he did not believe Russia would launch a full-scale invasion, even though Ukraine repeatedly received cautious diplomatic warnings. He asked the United States for weapons and preemptive sanctions if an invasion was genuinely expected. President Biden instead said sanctions would follow an invasion, which Zelenskyy calls a mistake in his personal view. He believes many governments interpreted Russia’s military exercises in Belarus and elsewhere as saber-rattling, especially because Putin told European leaders that he would not invade. When missiles began falling around four in the morning on February 24, 2022, Zelenskyy was with his family. He woke his wife, told her the war had started, said “I love you, I’ll call you,” and went to the office. Russian forces entered from multiple directions, including Belarus, with Kyiv as their main objective. Zelenskyy says the Ukrainian army initially had about 200,000 personnel, while the country later expanded to roughly 800,000 through mobilization and volunteers. Biden offered to help evacuate Zelenskyy and his family. Zelenskyy’s reported response was, “I need ammunition, not a ride.” He moved into a bunker beneath his office, continued speaking with foreign leaders, and repeatedly appeared in public because Russia was spreading claims that he had fled. He says staying was not a dramatic personal choice but his duty: abandoning Kyiv would have betrayed the people, the constitution, and the military’s belief that they were defending their capital and leader.

Zelenskyy says Russia underestimated Ukraine because it viewed Ukrainians as Russians who would flee once the Russian army arrived. The invasion force approached Kyiv rapidly, including a convoy reported at about 64 kilometers, or 40 miles, long. Russia also occupied the Chernobyl route and blockaded Kyiv, cutting food and water. Ukrainian residents volunteered, organized resistance, and eventually pushed Russian forces out of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions. According to Zelenskyy, Russia’s main military error was failing to provide enough troops to occupy the cities along the route. He estimates that Russia would have needed 300,000–400,000 troops to take Kyiv and hold the surrounding towns, rather than merely send an invasion force through them. He says Russian units even carried parade uniforms, expecting to capture Kyiv in three days and stage a victory spectacle on Independence Square. He disputes Donald Trump’s claim that a Russian general simply took a wrong turn onto muddy farmland, saying Russian forces actually reached and surrounded Kyiv before Ukrainian forces trapped and destroyed their armor. The battle for Hostomel Airport was crucial because Russia needed airports, transport links, communications infrastructure, and supply routes to isolate Kyiv and break the chain of command. Russian paratroopers initially seized the airport, but Ukrainian National Guard and special forces counterattacked, destroyed the runway, shot down transport helicopters, and retook it. Zelenskyy says the airport changed hands repeatedly; if Russia had held it, it could likely have landed enough forces to capture much of the capital.

Zelenskyy identifies the liberation of Bucha as his hardest day. He describes seeing bodies of children, adults, and elderly people lying in the streets, with evidence that victims had been tortured, had their hands tied, and were buried in mass graves. He invited journalists to Bucha without disturbing the scene because he wanted the world to see the evidence directly. He says witnesses described Russian forces looting homes, shooting people, committing sexual violence, and treating civilians as though they were targets in a hunting game. One elderly resident who had survived the Nazi occupation of Bucha reportedly told him that even the fascists had not treated people that way. Zelenskyy says the discovery changed everything: before Bucha, the war was a political and military catastrophe; afterward, it became a source of personal hatred and a desire for revenge. He admits that, for the first time, he wanted to find and kill people responsible for such acts, despite never previously feeling that way. This is why he rejects the idea that peace means simply forgiving everything or returning to ordinary commercial relations with Putin’s Russia. He says a ceasefire itself would already be a huge compromise because Ukrainians are being asked to stop fighting while carrying unbearable losses. A lasting peace, in his view, requires justice, accountability, and at least a credible path toward trials or punishment. Otherwise, the anger and desire for revenge will continue after the shooting stops.

Zelenskyy says the war has permanently changed him. His main wish is to end it, but he believes victims need justice and moral recognition because their loss cannot simply be healed. He misses his family even when they are nearby, and says war creates profound loneliness. His wife, Olena, remains a source of love, respect, and stability. His mother calls every day—sometimes repeatedly until he answers—to ask how he feels, how the children are doing, and when Putin will end the war. He estimates Russia occupies roughly 18–19% of Ukraine, including Crimea, much of Donetsk and Luhansk, Mariupol, Berdyansk, and parts of the southern regions. Ukraine retook Kherson, while Russian forces remain across the Dnipro and continue shelling Kherson and other cities. Zelenskyy says Russia wants additional eastern and southern targets, including Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Mykolaiv, because surrendering those areas would expose Ukraine’s industrial and economic centers and create a route for further advances. Responding to Trump’s claim that Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries raise American diesel prices, Zelenskyy says Russia’s diesel exports have no meaningful effect on U.S. prices. He says Ukraine strikes Russian energy infrastructure in retaliation for Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid, and proposes an energy ceasefire instead. Asked how the war can end, he says Trump could bring Putin to negotiations, but must apply pressure to Putin rather than shifting responsibility onto Ukraine. He closes by wishing America peace, strength, family life, and tranquility, while thanking it for helping Ukraine.