Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to search for keys to the conservative world and especially to the leaders and voters of the Republican Party in the United States in the attempt of saving US support to Ukraine and after a period of failed Ukrainian confidence in the victory of Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, which even resulted in the scandal during his last visit to the United States. So because, on January 5, 2025, the Ukrainian leader gave a more than 3-hour interview to the famous conservative American podcaster Lex Friedman In his interview with Friedman, Zelensky tried to please American audience and send certain political signals to the Republican establishment in the United States from Kyiv, demonstrate the common positions of the Ukrainian leadership and the new Administration in the United States.
Although back in July of last year (before the elections with the United States), the Ukrainian President refused to give an interview to the even more famous American journalist Tucker Carlson, which had been trying to organize it for more than two years.
Throughout the interview, the Ukrainian President continued to insist on his previously stated key positions regarding Ukraine's possible consent to begin negotiations to end the war: reliable security guarantees with the mandatory participation of the United States, an invitation or partial membership of Ukraine in NATO and the receipt of a sufficient amount of weapons, an increase in the aid to Ukraine, etc. At the same time, Zelensky said that he is not yet sure whether the new American administration will continue to provide aid to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian President said that Ukraine wants to join NATO at least partially or receive clear security guarantees from the United States. "Without the United States, security guarantees are impossible. I mean those security guarantees that can prevent Russian aggression," said Zelensky. That is in essense what, the Ukrainian President, is proposing: the new US President Donald Trump should commit the United States to participate in repelling a possible new Russian invasion, if it happens after the end of the current conflict.
At the same time, there have been no signals so far indicating the readiness of Donald Trump or his team to take on such obligations. On the contrary, Trump's team had previously made opposite statements about the intention to reduce US participation in the war and minimize the risks of escalation of the global conflict with the Russian Federation. D. Trump is also skeptical about Ukraine's chances of becoming a NATO member.
Zelensky obviously feels the general trend of reassessing the situation and growing distrust of the Ukrainian leadership on the part of the new US administration, so he said that negotiations on a peaceful settlement (and, in fact, on the future of Ukraine) should first take place between him and Trump, but with the obligatory invitation of representatives of Europe. But if Zelensky is talking about Europe, then he is most likely talking about the leaders of France and Great Britain, who most consistently support the Ukrainian leadership in its goals of war until military victory over the Russian Federation. Zelensky obviously hopes that the participation of Emmanuel Macron and Kier Starmer in negotiations with Trump will strengthen the Ukrainian position. Although, even against this background, Macron called on Ukraine to conduct "realistic discussions on territorial issues" to end the war. And the United States, according to the French President, “has to help us change the nature of the situation and convince Russia to come to the negotiating table", and the Europeans will have to "create security guarantees" for Ukraine. Ukraine's European allies are also obviously looking for a place at the negotiating table, and the topic of "European security guarantees" and / or "peacekeepers" may be the political price to pay for this.
At the same time, Zelensky several times during the interview categorically rejected the idea of a trilateral format of negotiations - Zelensky - Trump - Putin, which Lex Friedman brought up for discussion. Direct negotiations with Vladimir Putin, after years of the most brutal anti-Russian propaganda during the repulse of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, remain an extremely difficult and politically toxic issue for the President of Ukraine, requiring, among other things, formal legal steps to cancel his own Decree on the impossibility of such negotiations. Zelensky can probably take such a step only if he receives reliable political and financial compensators that will allow him to convince Ukrainian society of victory in the war and guarantee the preservation of his own power during the period of peace. Zelensky also considers the idea of a truce or a ceasefire agreement to be unproductive and dangerous, since in his opinion the Russian Federation will disrupt this truce when it is advantageous for it, as it did in 2019 (within the framework of the Minsk agreements).
Of the other interesting statements by the President of Ukraine, one can also highlight the fact that Zelensky revealed the number of the Ukrainian army - naming it at 980 thousand people (which looks somewhat formal and overstated), and also proposed using frozen Russian assets in the EU to purchase American weapons, which can be seen as an attempt to offer a political deal for the new administration in the United States. Especially after the proposal for the joint use of Ukrainian natural resources.
When asked about the military operation of Ukraine in the Kursk region and the military partnership between the Russian Federation and the DPRK, Zelensky replied that, according to his data, North Korea has already lost 3,800 soldiers killed and wounded in the Russian-Ukrainian war out of 12 thousand who arrived in the Russian Federation.
It is also likely that to capture the Republican audience and demonstrate special sincerity, Zelensky used emotional and even obscene language throughout the interview.
In particular, he stated that contrary to the points of the Budapest Memorandum, its signatory countries (the USA, Great Britain, France, Russia and China) did not give a damn attention about the official requests from Kyiv sent back in 2014 to respond to Russia's invasion of Crimea and Donbass. Speaking about the West's refusal to impose preventive sanctions against the Russian Federation, providing Ukraine with sufficient weapons to defend itself before a full-scale invasion in February 2022, Zelensky limited himself to the phrase "Well, this is bullshit, sorry".
But in some cases, a clear emotional reaction was also observed. Especially when it came to corruption or elections in Ukraine. Regarding the fight against corruption, Zelensky emphasized that everything possible is being done in this direction, mentioning the arrest of Ihor Kolomoisky (although in fact the number of oligarchs in Ukraine has not decreased, and many of them have become even more influential). When asked whether it is true that the Ukrainian military sold the weapons supplied to them to third countries, Zelensky said that if this were true, these people would have been immediately eliminated in the conditions of war. The emotionality of these answers is emphasized by the fact that at a certain point in the interview, Zelensky veiledly accused the current American administration of Joe Biden of the fact that not all the allocated aid reached Ukraine, and of corruption. In particular, Zelensky noted that $ 177 billion was allocated for Ukraine, but only half came to Ukraine - "find the other half - you will find corruption," he said.
The President also noted that elections in Ukraine are possible only after the end of martial law. Regarding his readiness to run for a second term, Zelensky made it clear that he is considering such a possibility.
Zelensky's statement that Putin is trying to set him at odds with Trump clearly sounded alarming. He also noted that it is wrong to assume that Russia is allegedly striving for peace talks, while Ukraine is deliberately ignoring them. "In Putin's head is to end the occupation of our territory. It's all in his sick head, I am sure of it. Therefore, do not wait for Putin's desire, force him to stop the war," the President of Ukraine said in an interview. The Russian President is "deaf", and one must speak to him only from a position of strength, and not subjectivize, Zelensky emphasized. This once again demonstrates that perhaps the main tactical task of both Ukraine and the Russian Federation today is to convince Trump that it is the enemy who is disrupting the negotiations. It is obvious that the President of Ukraine and his team not only maintain but publicly declare the hope that they will be able to convince Trump regarding the need to maintain or even increase military and financial assistance to Ukraine to achieve a military victory over the Russian Federation. Also, the Ukrainian side sincerely hopes for the failure of future negotiations between Trump and Putin, which will allow the military-political situation to return to the "Biden era" (the period of 2022-2024).
The Ukrainian leader and his closest European allies hope that the geopolitical ambitions of the newly elected US President, the desire to look strong and avoid the Afghan disgrace, which results in the previously repeatedly declared principle of "peace through strength" will avoid a catastrophic scenario of reducing American participation in supporting Ukraine and weakening American guarantees of presence in Europe.
Zelensky is concerned that Trump's team is not just declaring plans to end the war but is also talking about compromise mechanisms to achieve peace (which for Ukraine will mean not only fixing territorial and other losses but also putting Ukraine and Russia on an equivalent footing in international relations), and the inevitability of reducing American aid to Ukraine.
All this is happening against the backdrop of the ongoing Russian offensive, which could engulf the entire Donbass next year and roll over to the Dnipropetrovsk region and the outskirts of Zaporizhzhia, as well as the loss of trust in the Ukrainian society towards the government and the political course as a whole. The Ukrainian team is feverishly searching its own pockets and the pockets of its partners for the keys to the door of the crisis, which is getting worse. But the problem is that the real military and financial capabilities of Ukraine's European partners do not coincide with their declared goals in the war against the Russian Federation; and the position of the new US administration is not yet sufficiently structured and clear, but will obviously form a new reality and be based exclusively on the principle of American national interests, with minimal adjustments for old relations and alliances; the Russian Federation continues to implement the tactics of a boa constrictor, without weakening its grip on Ukraine.
To find other doors - exits from the situation, Zelensky will have to make enormous efforts and literally step over part of his reputation and ambitions. Fortunately, in this case, public opinion in Ukraine may be on the side of the President.
Ruslan Bortnik
