Unacceptable to allow war freeze, let Russia recover - Zelensky

During the counteroffensive, the Ukrainian defenders will do everything to make Russian invaders run from Ukraine but it is too early to talk about the full restoration of sovereignty immediately after.

Ukraine must move forward and prevent Russia from freezing the conflict, President Volodymyr said in an interview with the BBC for Eurovision News, Ukrinform reports.

"We will do everything to make the enemy run. And to be honest, I think it depends on our spirit. The more powerful we are in our counterattack, the farther they will run, to their own territory. I think this is the most important thing. I can't tell you exactly where we will go on the counteroffensive. We have lots of different steps. I think we will achieve the appropriate result. But I can’t yet say that Ukraine's sovereignty will be fully restored immediately after this counteroffensive because this is war," Zelensky stressed.

The head of state explained that when he talked about "results," he meant that Ukraine must move forward and that it is impossible to allow a "conflict freeze" or a repetition of the Minsk agreements, on which, according to him, Russia is counting.

He emphasized that the "conflict freeze" would only contribute to Russian invaders relaxing and restoring their army potential.

"We know that this will be just some rest for the Russian Federation to prepare their army, which was defeated on our land, to restore it, to find opportunities to motivate them. That is, they have a large number of soldiers, but their army is broken. And their army is not so big anymore. The number of people is large. They don't care that they don't know how to fight. They don't care whom they mobilize. Indeed, they do have equipment. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of that equipment. But they already understand they will not be able to occupy Ukraine using these forces. To this end, they need more time. That is why they would benefit from a frozen conflict," Zelensky noted.

At the same time, he emphasized that success for Ukraine is not allowing the conflict to freeze and moving forward, de-occupying own land.

"I believe that we are able to achieve success on the battlefield, to grab this initiative so that there is no stagnation on the battlefield, which could lead to a frozen conflict," president added.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, previously warned against viewing the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which everyone anticipates, as the last one in this war.

Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the NSDC, said that the top military leadership is carefully working out several options for how future military actions to liberate Ukrainian land from Russian invaders will take place, and that decisions are yet to be made, taking into account the situation at the front.