President on statements by Kissinger and NYT: They want to exchange lives of millions of Ukrainians for illusion of peace
“No matter what the Russian state does, there is always someone who says: let's take its interests into account. This year in Davos it was heard again. Despite thousands of Russian missiles hitting Ukraine. Despite tens of thousands of Ukrainians killed. Despite Bucha and Mariupol, etc. Despite the destroyed cities. And despite the "filtration camps" built by the Russian state, in which they kill, torture, rape and humiliate like on a conveyor belt. Russia has done all this in Europe,” Zelensky said in his evening address on May 25.
In this context, he mentioned the words by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who said that a piece of Ukrainian territory should be given to Russia so that Russia would not be alienated from Europe.
“It seems that Mr. Kissinger's calendar is not 2022, but 1938, and he thought he was talking to an audience not in Davos, but in Munich of that time. By the way, in the real year 1938, when Mr. Kissinger's family was fleeing Nazi Germany, he was 15 years old, and he understood everything perfectly. And nobody heard from him then that it was necessary to adapt to the Nazis instead of fleeing them or fighting them,” the President stressed.
As noted, “symptomatic” editorials began to appear in some Western media stating that Ukraine must allegedly accept so-called difficult compromises by giving up territory in exchange for peace.
Perhaps The New York Times in 1938 also wrote something similar. But now, let me remind you, it is 2022, Zelensky underscored.
“And behind all these geopolitical speculations of those who advise Ukraine to give away something to Russia, "great geopoliticians" are always unwilling to see ordinary people. Ordinary Ukrainians. Millions of those who actually live in the territory they propose to exchange for the illusion of peace,” the President stressed.
He is convinced that after the full-scale Russian invasion, the world was not ready for Ukrainian courage because, in his opinion, many in the world had no habit of taking Ukraine into account.
“That is why I pay such attention to international platforms, addresses to parliamentarians, to parliaments, to the people of other countries, to communication with the expert community, with journalists, with students. We must do everything possible for the world to get a permanent habit of taking Ukraine into account. So that the interests of Ukrainians are not overlapped by the interests of those who are in a hurry for another meeting with the dictator,” Zelensky said.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Ukraine should give up part of its territory to Russia and that the United States and the West should refrain from seeking a defeat for Russia.
An editorial was published in the New York Times, the authors of which admitted that Ukraine would be forced to give up territories to Russia to end the war.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba stated that Ukraine would not make concessions to Putin, because the strategy of appeasing him from 2014 to the beginning of the full-scale invasion failed and had no chance of success in the future.
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