After Four Years Of War, Zelensky Wants All Land Back

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Tuesday marks four years since Russia first launched its invasion of Ukraine, and, despite President Trump promising to end the war quickly, there’s no end in sight to the conflict as Russian and Ukrainian leadership haven’t budged on their core demands for a peace deal.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reaffirmed in an interview with the BBC over the weekend that he wouldn’t cede the territory Ukraine still controls in the eastern Donbas region and defined “victory” as Ukraine regaining all of the land it has lost to Russia since February 2022.

Ukraine ceding the Donbas is a key Russian demand to end the war, and President Trump has repeatedly called for Zelensky to do so, arguing that Ukraine will likely lose the territory in bloody battles in the coming months and years. When asked by the BBC interviewer if he thought it was a “reasonable request” for a ceasefire, Zelensky said he didn’t agree.

“I see this differently. I don’t look at it simply as land. I see it as abandonment – weakening our positions, abandoning hundreds of thousands of our people who live there. That is how I see it. And I am sure that this ‘withdrawal’ would divide our society,” Zelensky said.

When asked whether he still sought to regain all the land Ukraine has lost, Zelensky answered in the affirmative but suggested he needed more help from his Western backers to do so.

“We’ll do it. That is absolutely clear. It is only a matter of time. To do it today would mean losing a huge number of people – millions of people – because the [Russian] army is large, and we understand the cost of such steps. You would not have enough people, you would be losing them. And what is land without people? Honestly, nothing,” Zelensky said.

“And we also don’t have enough weapons. That depends not just on us, but on our partners. So as of now that’s not possible but returning to the just borders of 1991 without a doubt, is not only a victory, it’s justice. Ukraine’s victory is the preservation of our independence, and a victory of justice for the whole world is the return of all our lands,” he added.

Another major sticking point in the negotiations is the issue of security guarantees. Zelensky and many European leaders want troops from NATO nations to deploy to Ukrainian territory with the backing of US airpower after a peace deal is signed, but Russian officials have repeatedly rejected the idea and made clear that the condition is a non-starter.

Zelensky said in the BBC interview that he wants whatever security guarantee he gets from the US to last 30 years. He made the comments when asked about the Trump administration’s call for him to hold elections, saying that US security guarantees would need to be in place before that happened.

Russian and Ukrainian officials held talks in Geneva last week, but there’s been no sign of progress. Russia maintains it won’t agree to a deal unless its key demands are met, which include Ukraine ceding the territory and guarantees on Ukraine not joining NATO, and has made clear it’s willing to continue the grinding war to achieve those goals.