Kyiv, Ukraine – Unshaven and wearing a military T-shirt, exhausted Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky hosted his first press conference since the start of the war on Thursday, inviting journalists to his office building, now fortified with sandbags.
At an animated briefing, Mr. Zelensky, whose challenge turned him into a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion, outlined the state of negotiations with Russia, expressed pride in his people, pleaded for a no-fly zone and spoke out against fear of death.
Apart from the answers Mr Zelenski gave to questions, pulling a chair close to the journalists present, the press conference seemed to aim to signal that his battered government was still functioning at least a week after the war, despite increasingly difficult conditions in Kyiv.
Mr Zelensky said he was particularly proud of the resistance of ordinary Ukrainians to the Russian attack, a seething, angry uprising of much of society, even as Russian tanks attacked major cities and the capital.
“That’s why I’m so strong and so determined,” he said. “We have a special people, an extraordinary people. He said no senior officials had fled the country, and several senior associates appeared at the press conference.
Mr Zelenski said he had called on Western leaders for additional military support, including asking French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Schultz to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, a unlikely proposal while continuing talks. with the Russian leadership. The second of two rounds of talks with Russia in recent days took place on Thursday.
“We are ready to talk about all topics,” he said. Mr Zelenski’s negotiator during the talks, Mikhail Podoliak, said later on Thursday that the talks had ended with a ceasefire agreement so that civilians could escape heavy fighting, but no progress had been made on the agreement.
“The Russian side has long since built the answers to their questions,” Zelensky said. “What’s the point of asking questions if you’ve had the answers for a long time?” For now, this is the difficulty of this dialogue. “
He said he was ready to compromise on some points, but did not specify which ones and said he would not submit to conditions threatening Ukraine’s sovereignty.
“There are problems that need to be compromised so that people do not die, and there are problems that cannot be compromised,” he said. “Well, we can’t just say, here it is, now it’s your country, Ukraine is part of Russia.” This is simply impossible. So why offer it? “
Reporters arrived at the president’s office in vans that passed through concrete barriers and steel I-beams welded to crosses and placed in the streets to slow tanks. In Kyiv’s government district, usually a quiet, green neighborhood with offices and elegant 19th-century apartment buildings, armored cars blocked intersections.
The vans passed through the maze of courtyards and into the back entrance of the presidential office building. Inside the building, security guards escorted journalists with flashlights through dark corridors full of soldiers.
Sandbags were arranged on the window sills. There were firing positions at the entrances to fire from inside the Mr. Zelenski’s office to the outside street, implying a willingness to endure even if street fighting reached the site.
Updated
March 3, 2022, 5:39 p.m. ET
Mr Zelenski thanked the reporters for showing up.
“It’s best to see it with your own eyes,” he said of the city’s preparations for defense. However, he said, he is doing his best to negotiate.
Mr Zelenski said he slept for about three hours a night. His cheeks drooped with fatigue. However, he was lively and vigorously gestured to score points.
Although the briefing was held in a conference room to suggest a certain amount of normalcy, soldiers with assault rifles stood in the room and the windows were blocked by piles of white sandbags.
He reiterated his call for direct talks with President Vladimir Putin, something the Russian leader has rejected both before and after hostilities.
“Not that I want to talk to Putin,” he said. “I need to talk to Putin. The world needs to talk to Putin. There is no other way to stop this war. “
Regarding the conflict and what he described as reports, the Russian military does not intend to repatriate its victims in the war to avoid inciting anti-war sentiment at home, he said: “This is a nightmare. I can’t even imagine what kind of person would plan such actions. “
The war between Russia and Ukraine: key things you need to know
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A Ukrainian city is falling. Russian troops gained control of Kherson, the first city to be conquered during the war. Overtaking Kherson is important because it allows the Russians to control much of Ukraine’s southern coast and push west toward the city of Odessa.
Many Russian soldiers were 18 and 19, said Zelensky, 45. He noted that the soldiers were the age of his own daughter and “could be my children”. He added: “They will die in uniform because of decisions made by men in suits.”
Mr Zelenski said he had asked Schultz and Macron to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. The idea was largely rejected by Western governments as almost impossible due to the risk of direct conflict between NATO and Russian forces.
But he said Russian aggression would only spread if it was not stopped in Ukraine. The leadership in Moscow, he said, will at some point turn to other Eastern European countries and eventually build a new Berlin Wall.
He criticized German officials for working against the West’s efforts to pressure Russia to settle the long-running war in eastern Ukraine by building a new natural gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2, to Russia. The pipeline was intended to provide cheap energy to the German economy, although the project has now been halted.
Mr Zelenski, a former comedian who has always had a keen sense of image and storytelling in politics, said he was aware that his repeated television calls for resistance and continued presence in the besieged capital had made him a symbol in many countries. for courage and protection of democracy. That helps Ukraine, he said.
“I am very happy that the world is united to support Ukraine,” said Zelensky, who refused to flee the country, rejecting a announced US evacuation proposal. “I need ammunition, not transport,” he said at the time.
Mr Zelenski has spoken out against Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has balanced support for Ukraine with efforts to maintain ties with Russia and blocked some arms transfers to Ukraine, which include Israeli-made parts. Mr Zelensky, a Jew, noted that this week a Russian rocket killed five civilians at the Holocaust Memorial in Kyiv’s Babin Yar. The rocket was aimed at a television transmission tower.
Mr Zelensky said he was inspired to see images of people praying on the West Wall in Jerusalem wrapped in blue and yellow Ukrainian flags. He suggested it was time for the Israeli government to take a moral stance. “Everything has been tested so far,” he said. “I do not feel that it is wrapped in the flag of Ukraine,” he told Mr Bennett.
Asked if he was afraid of dying in the war, he said everyone had such fears.
“I am a living person, like everyone else,” he said. “And if a person is not afraid of losing his life or the lives of his children, there is something wrong with that person.” He added, however, that as president “I simply have no right” to be afraid.
If he hadn’t been president, he said, he would probably have joined the volunteers who accepted rifles when the military began handing them out last week, and he would have faced risks anyway. He said he may have chosen to help by distributing food to soldiers instead. He joked, “I’m probably not as good a shooter as some other people.”