“I’m not willing to talk to Putin: he kills for the seat, now a counter-offensive”

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«I’m not willing to talk to Putin» and the way out in Ukraine «is the counter-offensive: when we reach the border with Crimea, support for Putin within Russia will decrease and he will have to find a way out. Not long now.” Volodymyr Zelensky, wearing a black sweatshirt with the Ukrainian symbol visible, thus replies with calm but adamant tones to the questions of journalists in an extraordinary episode of Porta a Porta broadcast yesterday from the Sommoportico of the Vittoriano in Rome: together with Bruno Vespa are the directors of Tg1 Monica Maggioni, of Tg La7 Enrico Mentana, of SkyTg24 Giuseppe De Bellis, the conductor Mediaset Nicola Porro and for the newspapers the directors of Sole 24 Ore Fabio Tamburini, of Repubblica Maurizio Molinari and the columnist of Corriere della Sera Ferruccio de Bortoli.

When Zelensky is asked what he is willing to give up, he closes to any “compromise”: “We don’t just want peace, we want a just peace. The victory for us who have lost sons and fathers is not only to recover the territories, but also justice for the crimes that have been committed”. The Ukrainian leader who, when asked specifically, denied not having wanted to meet Matteo Salvini thanked “the Italians” several times: “Without your help there would have been more victims. The weapons and sanctions are working,” he assured. And to those who point out to him how solidarity with Ukraine may be weakening, Zelensky recalls how the war that has been being fought for over a year is not far from Europe and from Italy: «If Ukraine falls, the next step is Moldova and then the Baltic countries. Putin arrives there, perhaps not Italy, but the Baltic countries are members of NATO and you will have to send your children to war”.

Will anything finally change if Donald Trump wins in the US? “I don’t know if he can help us, I know he didn’t resolve the matter at the time, but I don’t think it was a priority for him.” And if at an international level there are “skeptic” countries, those “that support us are many more”. With China that does not worry him: “Xi assured me that they will not give up arms and will not support Russia”.