President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasizes that Ukraine needs reliable security guarantees not only “on paper” in order to end the war, since at one time the guarantors of the Budapest Memorandum had a “crush” on Ukraine.

He stated this in an interview with the American podcast Lex Friedman, reports Ukrainian truth.

“The Budapest Memorandum provided security guarantees for Ukraine. First, the three most important guarantors of security for Ukraine, the three strategic friends and partners of Ukraine are the United States, Russia, and Britain. France and China joined. There were 5 states... It is now we understand that these are no guarantees of security. It was written “assurance”... These are the largest states, this is the nuclear five. Now we would have to find all these people who came up with all this and just put them in jail...

After the occupied part of Donbas and Crimea, Ukraine sent letters three times over several years to all security guarantors, all members of the Budapest Memorandum. What is written in the memorandum? Consultations, Ukraine conducts consultations if its territorial integrity is violated. And everyone has to be at the consultations, everyone has to come, they have to meet urgently — America, Britain, Russia, France, China.

Has anyone come? No. Has anyone responded to these letters officially? Has anyone done the consultation? No. Why? And pocher. Is that clear in Russian? Just as the Russians had a crush, so all the other guarantors had a crush on this country, on these people, on these security guarantees,” Zelensky said.

He noted that he spoke with US President-elect Donald Trump about the Budapest Memorandum, and “we have not finished this conversation yet, we will continue it.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky also said that before a full-scale invasion, he asked the United States to impose preventive sanctions against Russia, and called the intimidation of the aggressor with sanctions in the event of an attack “nonsense”.

“I have asked only one thing, first of all from the United States — if you are sure, if you have proof, if you talk to him, he tells you that there will be an invasion, if all this scares you, I am not asking for proof, just give me two things — reinforce us with weapons, but best of all — reinforce us with preconditions so that we do not There was no war. It's not a weapon first of all, it's me asking them for sanctions. That is, scare him. Do not say, please, “if he comes, if he crosses the borders, if he kills, we will impose sanctions.” Well, this is stupid, sorry,” Zelensky said.

At this point, Friedman, who speaks Russian, said that he understood one word without a translator.

As reported, a few weeks ago Zelensky on his social networks namedPresident of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin “long.. boom”.