Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “hard pressure” from the U.S. is the only thing that will stop Russia from seeking the “total defeat” of his country.
Mr. Zelenskyy pinpointed President Trump in an interview with ABC News that aired Sunday, saying the U.S. leader is the key to ending Russia’s military campaign, which included massive drone and bombing attacks in the past week.
“I am convinced that the president of the United States has all the powers and enough leverage to step up,” Mr. Zelenskyy told the network.
Mr. Trump, who campaigned on ending the war, said last week that it’s best to let the two nations continue duking it out before the U.S. gets involved in brokering a peace deal.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump had likened the war to “two young children fighting like crazy.”
“They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart,” Mr. Trump said Thursday during a joint media appearance with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Mr. Zelenskyy criticized that metaphor, telling ABC that people watching the war play out from thousands of miles away cannot grasp the pain and suffering of those surrounded by it.
“We are not kids with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin at the playground,” the Ukrainian president told ABC. “He is a murderer who came to this park to kill the kids.”
The war that started in February 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saw both sides deliver major blows in the past week.
Mr. Zelenskyy said a clandestine Ukrainian drone strike launched June 1 ended with over 40 Russian bombers being damaged in the attack. U.S. officials have said a more realistic number was 20 warplanes hit, with 10 being destroyed.
Russia responded with multiple large-scale drone and bombing strikes throughout Ukraine.
Four people were killed and nearly 60 were injured when Russia bombarded Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, between Friday night and early Saturday.
Another two people were killed by Russian strikes on Kherson, officials said.
Russia launched more than 400 drones and roughly 40 missiles all throughout Ukraine on Thursday night, resulting in six deaths and 80 people being injured in the Eastern European nation.
“They have to understand that we are under strikes, under attack every day,” Mr. Zelenskyy told ABC News. “You might remember that when they were talking about ceasefires, temporary ceasefire, they still continued attacking and launching strikes.”
On Sunday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces in the Donetsk region were “developing the offensive” into the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region.
Both countries are also trying to work out an exchange for the bodies of 6,000 soldiers killed in combat.
Russian leaders said they brought the first batch of 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers to a transfer point along the border, but have not received confirmation from Ukraine on when the swap will take place.
Officials accused the Ukrainians of postponing the exchange, but Ukrainian authorities said they were following the timeline agreed upon during talks in Istanbul.
“The start of repatriation activities based on the results of the negotiations in Istanbul is scheduled for next week, as authorized persons were informed about on Tuesday,” said Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s intelligence chief, in a statement Sunday. “Everything is moving according to plan, despite the enemy’s dirty information game.”
