Zelenskyy: Ukraine cannot be forced to give up territories no matter who wins US elections
Ukraine will not give up its constitutional territories regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections and further support for Ukraine, although if it is weakened, it will not be able to win the war, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
"The new President of the United States can either increase support for Ukraine or weaken it. Weakening support for Ukraine will give Russia the opportunity to occupy us more. Weakening support for Ukraine will not give us the opportunity to win this war. And this is true," Zelenskyy said in an interview with South Korean television channel KBS.
"And therefore we are not talking about territorial compromises, but we are saying that there may be certain diplomatic paths, but they depend on the policy of the United States of America, if it does not weaken, the desire of the United States of America to really end the war quickly. And in the case of Trump [U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump], he declared that he is a man of action, and he simply wants to end the war quickly and find some kind of model. But if Trump wants, in the event of his victory, to simply force Ukraine to give up everything and thus reach an agreement with Russia, I do not think that this is possible today," the Ukrainian president added.
According to him, Ukraine does not recognize its occupied territories as Russian, “no matter what anyone wants, no matter who wins in the United States and no matter how long Putin is the leader of the Russian Federation – it is impossible.”
"In any case, Ukraine does not have the constitutional right to renounce its legal state territories, and therefore legally it is simply impossible, no matter what Putin comes up with," Zelenskyy said.
Commenting on Ukraine's military operation in Kursk region of the Russian Federation, he noted that "we do not need their territory."
"We have not occupied anything - we have created a buffer zone, the one they wanted to create in this direction against us ... We are not going to live there, we are not going to seize their territories - we are not interested in this. We are interested in the return of our territories. And if at the end of the war, with diplomatic steps or with today's tactical military steps on the battlefield, this operation will have an influential effect, we will use it," Zelenskyy explained.