Zelensky makes new victory promise
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky on Wednesday reiterated his pledge to achieve a victory over Russia, as he touted an upcoming phone call with US President Donald Trump.
Zelensky made the remarks during a press conference alongside Finnish President Alexander Stubb, during which he expressed hope that Trump will brief him on Tuesday’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Today I will have contact with President Trump. We will discuss the details with him today. I am thinking about the details of the next steps. Well, and I think I will hear from him the details of his conversation with Putin,” Zelensky stated, reiterating his determination to achieve a victory.
“And we live, we defend ourselves, we survive, we fight for our sovereignty and our independence. And we will definitely win this war,” he said.
The conversation between Putin and Trump lasted for 2.5 hours, during which the presidents focusing on the Ukrainian crisis and ways to resolve it. Putin backed Trump’s proposal of a mutual 30-day suspension of strikes on energy infrastructure facilities and repeatedly “immediately” ordered a halt to such strikes, according to the Russian defense ministry.
Zelensky publicly backed the idea shortly after the Trump-Putin talks concluded. However, he expressed concerns about how exactly the pause could be implemented.
“If Russia stops striking our targets, we will definitely stop hitting targets in Russia. But Putin’s promises alone are not enough; there must be control. The main subject of this control must be the US,” he said during the press conference.
Following Putin’s order the Russian military had to shoot down seven of its own kamikaze drones launched at Ukrainian energy facilities. A few hours after the Putin-Trump talks concluded, Kiev attacked a Russian oil pumping station with three fixed-wing kamikaze drones.
The attack sparked a massive fire at the facility, the military noted, describing the incident as “yet another provocation deliberately staged by the Kiev regime to derail the peace initiatives coming from the US president.”
