Ukraine’s president told a French newspaper on Wednesday that his armed forces “do not have the strength” to dislodge Russian positions within his country’s borders.
"We can only count on diplomatic pressure from the international community to force Putin to sit down at the negotiating table," Volodymyr Zelensky explained to the Paris-based Le Parisien during his visit to a NATO summit in Brussels.
Despite this military shortfall, Zelensky remained resolute, emphasizing the Ukrainian constitution forbids any territorial concessions. The 46-year-old leader suggested a solution for Kiev might lie in Western nations finding the resolve to "put Putin in his place" and "diplomatically deal with this war."
Zelensky also attributed his nation’s current predicament to the failure of NATO members to deliver all the weaponry requested when Russia launched its invasion in 2022.
At present, Moscow controls roughly 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory, primarily in the southern and eastern provinces of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia. Additionally, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
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