Transcripts For CSPAN Ukrainian 20240704 : vimarsana.com

Gentlemen, um, obviously this is one of the rare cases where the cliche is true. My next guest does need no introduction and i will not waste your time giving him one. I just want to make sure the video connection is working. So, can we, can we make sure we have president zelenskyy . Uh, and, ahh. Mr. President , it is Fareed Zakaria from aspen, can you hear me . [applause] pres. Volodymyr zelenskyy [indiscernible] translator good afternoon audience. Thank you for the invitation. Fareed zakaria thank you for doing this, mr. President. We know that you have many many things to deal with and we appreciate you taking time out of your schedule. Um, we have known each other a while. And so, i will begin with a very frank question that has been on everyones mind. Uh, the ukrainian counteroffensive seems to be going more slowly and has many more difficulties than people might have anticipated. Can you tell us from your perspective why you think these why you think you face these difficulties and what you need to do to try to overcome them . Pres. Volodymyr zelenskyy thank you for the question. A very relevant one. I would just like to draw your attention to the change worldwide. Now we are discussing the counteroffensive in ukraine. Ukraine is not backtracking, but steadily liberates its territories, which is very important. Last autumn our servicemen had a powerful operation. And then they started building new pervades. We did not count on the time to prepare counteroffensive activities and it was a decision among the experts that we did have plans to start it in the spring. We didnt because, frankly, we did not have enough munitions and armaments and not enough proper brigades trained properly in these weapons. Still more than that the Training Missions were held outside ukraine. But still, we started and this is important. And because we started it a bit later on it can be said, and it will be shared truth, understood by all the experts, that it provided russia with time to mine all our lands and build several lines of defense. And definitely they had more time than they needed. Lines of defense. Definitely they had more time than they needed and because of that they build more of the lines. And really, they had a lot of mines on our field. Because of that, its lowered it slowed the pace of our counteroffensive actions. We did not want to lose our vehicles and personnel and our servicemen did not want to lose equipment and because of that they were quite careful about offensive actions. Still, i would say that we are approaching a moment when relevant actions can gain pace, because we are already going through some mined locations and we are demining these areas. I want to draw your attention. Not to complain, but to tell you that we did not have enough the mining equipment. Now we are being helped by partners. I want to thank our partners, president biden, congress with United States, our partners in europe. Thank you to them. Thanks to the strength of our people we had this counteroffensive started. And yes, i do understand that it is always better to see if victory comes sooner. This is what we also want, but the question is the price of this victory, so let us not throw people under tanks, literally. Let us plan our counteroffensive as our analysts and intelligence suggests. And some of our residential areas have been liberated already, so i do believe in our victory. Fareed zakaria when, when we watched the ukrainian movement, i notice you are using a large number of drones. And many of them, most of them, and this is the nature of the drones, are being lost. You are losing about 10,000 drones per month. Do you have the capacity . Do you need a massive upscaling of drones . Because that seems to me one of the areas where this could alter the battle. Pres. Volodymyr zelenskyy frankly speaking, we get to resolve certain matters related to the types of weapons in most demand in most deficit. I would still point attention to the long rage artillery pieces. Longrange artillery pieces. This is really important. You know, when fighting the battlefield for our land against russia, the key thing is our motivation. And it would be really good for us to at least be on par with artillery. But if we could be better, and definitely new types of armaments, the nato types are better but there are less of them. And definitely, we dont have a balance in terms of the range. You know, that they have these s300s that they are shelling us with on a regular basis. And its not just a matter of a counteroffensive. It is the matter of resilience of our community, of our society. This is very important. People continue working and paying taxes. And this money goes to pay our servicemen. Our strength is necessary, our defense is necessary for everyone. You do know that civilians are being shelled by drones on a daily basis. And the majority it is about kamikaze drones. These are used to bombard our power sector, our schools, the network of schools and institutions and this is really a challenge, so i would really draw attention to longrange armaments. Again, we have been waiting for it for quite some time. And let us still have hopes and with the hope that the United States will resolve the matter. And it really, at the moment, at is needed with defense assistance. It is also important to note that the domination is in the sky. And we need to tell that russia is clearly dominating the sky. Now we are in short supply of modern warplanes. It is not just quantity but quality. We are very thankful to the world for already going through with the matter of training training our pilots. This is important. But besides them being trained, it would be nice to have some confidence in assurances that we will have these planes. Fareed zakaria president zelenskyy, i wonder what you can tell us about what is going on in the russian army. Your troops are encountering them. And i am wondering, given what we saw happen in russia over the last few weeks, do you notice the wagner forces are not uh uh confronting you on the battlefield . Or are they back . Is there a change in russian morale . Are you noticing something about the russian army as a consequence of the prigozhin attempted mutiny . Pres. Volodymyr zelenskyy i think we can understand what is happening to the strength of the russian army, or rather the lack of motivation, when we see what is happening to Russian Society , the Russian Federation, what is happening in their society, Something Like that does not happen off the battlefield. They are demotivated. You could see that putin lost strength of his power and the steps made by him attest to that. The same in the army. They have incessant changes in the commanding staff. And this means changes for any servicemen regarding all the ranks. If your commander is changed, even if it is your enemies, then it is definitely telling. I think this is a situation when they are out of balance because of the fact that they cannot show any victory on the battlefield. They cannot declare any victory in economy. But their people, on the contrary, their people, have become poorer. And people are not getting richer there and definitely pay our less motivated, as the servicemen are. And sometimes people who lack money and need to survive, they nevertheless have freedom. But in russia with their citizens, they dont have freedom. And because of that they are demotivated to the most. They dont see victories in civil life, in military activities, and even those who support the policy of war of aggression by president putin are, i think, this percentage is going down. We did analyze the step by prigozhin. We talked about that with partners and i would say maybe 40 to 45 of Russian Federation in spite of him being representative for federalist were the leader of ferris, you can still see it is still in the society, there is no unity, this is why we need to act, the world should not lose the unit because this is the criteria of being victorious, i think our thanks to this resilience, we will be able to rethink the attention of the world and our deficits, and i think we will be able to attain our goals, our land, our people. A few days ago Ukrainian Forces have now and knowledged that they bombed the bridge connecting crimea to the russian mainland. Is it a shortterm objective of yours to destroy that bridge completely, and do you believe that you will be able to reclaim all of crimea and part of this counteroffensive . Click see objective is to reclaim crimea because it is always sovereign territory and then talks of our nation, and the breach. This is not just a logistical road, the road used to feed the war with ammunition, and this is been done on a daily basis and that militarize is the Crimean Peninsula peninsula. For us, this is understandably in enemy facility built outside the International Laws and all applicable ones, so understandably this is our objective. In any target that is bringing war. Quex in retaliation it seems that the russians have pulled out of the green agreement. They are bombing granaries in odessa, it is becoming much harder to send and sell ukrainian Agricultural Products on world market, is there any solution, have you found any way to get ukrainian grain out now that the russians of pulled out of the grain deal . First of all, i think it would be safe to compare those two situation, the this is information about the Russian Federation. Let me explain it to you. Russia has disagreements from first day of it and there was an agreement involving turkey with two parallel agreements of turkey in the united nations, russia, turkey and the russian nations that were mirroring each other, but please work to have the court order to make its operation, and now, what russia has been doing is beyond the International Law with the deciding of these agreements, russia has blocked the corridor. They are idling at sea. Some would last for 2, 3 weeks. Up to 30 vessels, im able to either answer or exit our report. Russia did everything to slow down the process and artificially dump the prices on the worlds markets. Much of the same thing they did with energy sources. Nothing new for us, and some weeks before this event, crimea, russia would repeat that agreement. Because the world, the west, europe would not comply with the requirements and they would claim the that way they fight in order to have the objectives completed. At these objectives are to their money in the political elites. That said. Later on they took that situation around the crimea bridge using it just as an example. Believe me, if you follow the public messages, you will clearly see it has been a scheduled approach. Before that, they would find another example, another reason to do it. In spite of that we do look for ways we talk to the secretarygeneral right before this meeting with you, i have talked with president erdogan to discuss the crisis, we do see certain ways of being out of it. If we succeed, they succeed. If he is even stronger, i think everything will check ok. Everyone has to remember, the black sea is the see of all the nations of our world. This is not the see of the Russian Federation. There is ukraine, turkey, romania, bulgaria, and we are talking to other countries in the black sea region and we have very substantial, pragmatic relations. Humane relations. Bigger relations with everyone but russia because they think this is their whole c. Sea. We are running out of time but i want to give someone a chance to say hello to you, the deputy Prime Minister of canada is here. I want to get a mike so a microphone so she can greet the president and maybe even send him a message. He cannot hear you yet . Just come up. Good afternoon, mr. President , i hope you can see me. Glad to see you. Let me ask you a question, and i think this is the question in the minds of everyone here. It started with the preoccupation of all of your friends in the world, which is sort of a technical question about the offensive. I sell you with Prime Minister trudeau in june, and i was very struck by your absolute conviction in ukraines ultimate victory. I like to hear from you why you are so confident and how you see ukraine in the world looking when this is over and tell us why you are so sure. You see why am scared to have her on for longer, mr. President , she will take my job. We talked at the moment when i was sitting in this building. Unfortunately my country, including key of, was under threat. Lots of territories were occupied, but even then because our children, and we love them. We have children, we love them, we miss them. This is the life. I hope, and i think that god is on our side. We are different people, we live in one ukraine. Im sure unity is also on our side. Thats why im sure that we will win. Mr. President , thank you. [applause] cspan is your unfiltered view of government, we are funded by these Television Companies and more, including sparklight. The greatest town on earth is a place you call home. At sparklight, its our home and right now we are all facing our greatest challenge. Sparklight is working roundtheclock to keep you connected. We are doing our part so its a little easier to do yours. As a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. 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