Welcome to Mariinskyi Palace in Kyiv, Ukraine, where I just sat down for an exclusive interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And what a time to sit down with him: four and a half years—hard to believe—since Russia invaded Ukraine, an unprovoked war launched by Vladimir Putin. But it hasn't gone the way that Putin expected. Needless to say, the people of Ukraine have been resilient, courageous, and they're fighting for their freedom quite literally. Not just their freedom, but for the entire free world. I see Ukraine as a firewall for the West in particular, and I see Russia aligned with communist China, the Iranian regime, and North Korea. This is a battle for the free world; Ukraine is on the front lines.
I asked President Zelenskyy about that and the campaign of terror conducted by Vladimir Putin's forces intentionally targeting civilians, including right here in Kyiv during my stay here, kidnapping children—tens of thousands of Ukrainian children—dragging them back over the border to Russia to indoctrinate them, and again, working with the world's worst regimes with the goal to oppress Ukraine and perhaps move beyond Ukraine: NATO, we're talking Poland, Romania, you can think of Moldova as well. Think of the Baltic states. And there's a reason, folks, why Sweden and Finland were very quick to join NATO after Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and if you take the long view, 2014 when he seized Crimea. So, a lot to talk to President Zelenskyy about, including why every American should care about what's happening here in Ukraine. We hear about war fatigue—it's been almost five years and people don't want to hear about it—and yet, Ukraine is fighting the good fight and it profoundly affects us here in the United States. And we also talked about how Ukraine is fighting back and how the fight has now been taken to Moscow, to Vladimir Putin's backyard. So, here's my exclusive interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Mr. President, it's great to be here with you in Kyiv. And I've been here for a few days, and since I've been here, Vladimir Putin's regime has attacked this city with missiles and drones, intentionally targeting civilians. He's attacked your hometown, a shopping mall in your hometown, killing at least 15 people. These are war crimes by every definition. Could you talk more about this state-sponsored terror you've been facing here in Ukraine, not just since 2022 with the full-scale invasion, but really since 2014?
It's true. And you know how they began this war. By the way, it was the face of this war. Nobody could imagine that it could begin in such a way. They attacked at night; it was four in the morning or 4:00 AM, and they attacked civilians just with missiles. They attacked civilian people with massive missile attacks. There was big burning of cars and everything. People never saw missiles in the streets and everywhere. So it was terrible. But then during a long war, when you have a long war and everybody has a lot of losses, we really thought that they would change when they had hundreds of thousands of people who have been killed in this war—they sent them to Ukraine and they've been killed.
We really thought that they would stop this and think about people. The answer to the question was the first day of the war and now, as you mentioned, these days of the war: they never thought about the losses. For them, people's lives are not—
As it's called, the meat grinder. Putin sending young Russians into the—
Absolutely, absolutely. They divided families, they sent young people, and they don't think about their future, the future of their nation. But it's up to them. The problem is that we have challenges, we have these problems. We also have losses—less, yes, less, but each life is important.
Yes. Putin didn't give lives to us; God gave them, and our parents and our families. This is the most important thing we have, the most important. Yes, they attacked my native city. I spoke with my parents; they live there and I spoke with them. They said there were so many attacks. And what was terrible is that it's not a mistake—even during war there are some mistakes, but this is not a mistake. Because they attacked, then they waited a little bit for when medical people came, when rescuers came to help people, and they attacked the second time. A hundred wounded people; 26 are in a very difficult situation now and they can die, and 16 have already been killed. So, just one attack, and each day we have such attacks. Terrible Putin, terrible war, terrible attitude toward people's lives.
Mr. President, you need missile defense—more missile defense to defend against this onslaught. Talk about the need for more Patriot interceptors and why that's so important.
Number one, you're right. Thank you so much. Number one today is to save civilians. Our warriors save civilians, people, children on the front line; they made this strong wall. But it's very painful for them, of course. But that's on the front line. They can't defend civilians and our children on the front because of the missiles—a huge number of ballistic missiles. Each day Russia uses from 300 to 1,000, depending on whether it's a massive attack or not. They use Iranian drones; they attack us by using these Iranian drones. And during massive attacks, they also have cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. Patriot is number one. This is the best system in the world. It's an American production system. We are thankful to the American people for these deliveries. We have these systems—not too many, but we have some. The problem is with missiles, and we are asking very much of President Trump and bipartisan support to sell us—we have European money—to sell us a winter package. We need a minimum of 300 missiles for a winter package just to defend families, schools, universities, and some historical centers which are very important. But all of this is about people's lives. We need it. The priority is Patriot missiles.
And you're fighting back. You're taking the fight to Moscow, literally taking the fight to Moscow. Talk about the need to target economic centers in Russia to make Putin feel the pain and to face consequences for his attacks.
We always respond. This is our rule. We always respond, but we never attack their civilians, civilian people.
Yes. Of course there are losses during the war, and of course when they destroy some of our drones and missiles, they fall down and of course they have losses. But we never did any special operations against civilians, even though they are our enemies, they support Putin, and they support this war—supported it from the very beginning. But we never attack civilians. We will respond to Putin's attacks; otherwise, he can't understand what it means to live during the war.
Yes, of course, we need to bring this war back again and again. It's all about his people: they have to influence him, they have to say that they want to stop the war. All of us need peace; we need a ceasefire. There is only one person in the world—you know, there are different people in the world, different leaders, democratic leaders, autocrats, yes, this is the world—but all of them support a ceasefire. The only one person who is against it is Putin.
And he launched this war.
